e may do it, I will forego mine ill will toward him."

Messire Gawain thus heard himself mocked by day as well as by night and
had great shame thereof. He seeth that he may not depart without a
fight. One of the knights drew to backward and was alighted; the other
was upon his horse all armed, his shield on his neck and grasping his
spear in his fist. And he cometh toward Messire Gawain full career and
Messire Gawain toward him, and smiteth him so wrathfully that he
pierceth his shield and pinneth his shield to his arm and his arm to
his rib and thrusteth his spear into his body, and hurtleth against him
so sore that he beareth him to the ground, him and his horse together
at the first blow.

"By my head! Look at Messire Gawain the counterfeit! Better doth he
to-day than he did last night!"

He draweth back his spear, and pulleth forth his sword and runneth upon
him, when the knight crieth him mercy and saith that he holdeth himself
vanquished. Messire Gawain bethinketh him what he shall do and whether
the damsels are looking at him.

"Sir knight," saith the elder, "Need you not fear the other knight
until such time as this one be slain, nor will the evil custom be done
away so long as this one is on live. For he is the lord of the other
and because of the shameful custom hath no knight come hither this
right long space."

"Hearken now," saith the knight, "the great disloyalty of her! Nought
in the world is there she loved so well in seeming as did she me, and
now hath she adjudged me my death!"

"Again I tell you plainly," saith she, "that never will it be done away
unless he slay you."

Thereupon Messire Gawain lifteth the skirt of his habergeon and
thrusteth his sword into his body. Thereupon, lo you, the other
knight, right angry and sorrowful and full of wrath for his fellow that
he seeth dead, and cometh in great rage to Messire Gawain and Messire
Gawain to him, and so stoutly they mell together that they pierce the
shields and pierce the habergeons and break the flesh of the ribs with
the points of their spears, and the bodies of the knights and their
horses hurtle together so stiffly that saddle-bows are to-frushed and
stirrups loosened and girths to-brast and fewtres splintered and spears
snapped short, and the knights drop to the ground with such a shock
that the blood rayeth forth at mouth and nose. In the fall that the
knight made, Messire Gawain brake his collar-bone in the hurtle.
Thereup