h reputation, and had not the girths of his saddle burst he might
not have been unhorsed. As it chanced, however, saddle, horse, and man
rolled on the ground.

To extricate himself from the stirrups and fallen steed was to the Templar
scarce the work of a moment, and, stung with madness both at his disgrace
and at the acclamations with which it was hailed by the spectators, he
drew his sword and waved it in defiance of his conqueror. The Disinherited
Knight sprung from his steed and also unsheathed his sword. The marshals
of the field, however, spurred their horses between them, and reminded
them that the laws of the tournament did not, on the present occasion,
permit this species of encounter.

"We shall meet again, I trust," said the Templar, casting a resentful
glance at his antagonist; "and where there are none to separate us."

"If we do not," said the Disinherited Knight, "the fault shall not be
mine. On foot or horseback, with ax, or with sword, I am alike ready to
encounter thee."

More and angrier words would have been exchanged, but the marshals,
crossing their lances between them, compelled them to separate. The
Disinherited Knight returned to his first station, and Bois-Guilbert to
his tent, where he remained for the rest of the day in an agony of
despair.

Without alighting from his horse, the conqueror called for a bowl of
wine, and opening the beaver, or lower part of his helmet, announced that
he quaffed it "to all true English hearts, and to the confusion of foreign
tyrants." He then commanded his trumpet to sound a defiance to the
challengers, and desired a herald to announce to them that he should make
no election, but was willing to encounter them in the order in which they
pleased to advance against him.

The gigantic Front-de-Boeuf, armed in sable armor, was the first who took
the field. He bore on a white shield a black bull's head, half defaced by
the numerous encounters which he had undergone, and bearing the arrogant
motto, _Cave, adsum_. Over this champion the Disinherited Knight obtained
a slight but decisive advantage. Both knights broke their lances fairly,
but Front-de-Boeuf, who lost a stirrup in the encounter, was adjudged to
have the disadvantage.

In the stranger's third encounter with Sir Philip Malvoisin, he was
equally successful, striking that baron so forcibly on the casque that the
laces of the helmet broke, and Malvoisin, only saved from falling by
being unhelmeted, was