thou let him go without informing me?" "My Lord, thou didst not
command me to do so, else would I not have allowed him to depart."
"What way dost thou think that he took?" "I know not, except that he
went along the high road." And they turned their horses' heads that
way, and seeing the tracks of the horses upon the high road, they
followed. And when the maiden beheld the dawning of the day, she
looked behind her, and saw vast clouds of dust coming nearer and
nearer to her. And thereupon she became uneasy, and she thought that
it was the Earl and his host coming after them. And thereupon she
beheld a knight appearing through the mist. "By my faith," said she,
"though he should slay me, it were better for me to receive my death
at his hands, than to see him killed without warning him. My Lord,"
she said to him, "seest thou yonder man hastening after thee, and
many others with him?" "I do see him," said he; "and in despite of
all my orders, I see that thou wilt never keep silence." Then he
turned upon the knight, and with the first thrust he threw him down
under his horse's feet. And as long as there remained one of the
fourscore knights, he overthrew every one of them at the first onset.
And from the weakest to the strongest, they all attacked him one
after the other, except the Earl: and last of all the Earl came
against him also. And he broke his lance, and then he broke a
second. But Geraint turned upon him, and struck him with his lance
upon the centre of his shield, so that by that single thrust the
shield was split, and all his armour broken, and he himself was
brought over his horse's crupper to the ground, and was in peril of
his life. And Geraint drew near to him; and at the noise of the
trampling of his horse the Earl revived. "Mercy, Lord," said he to
Geraint. And Geraint granted him mercy. But through the hardness of
the ground where they had fallen, and the violence of the stroke
which they had received, there was not a single knight amongst them