his hands and feet, and took off his
brother's helmet, but the face was so scarred and blood-stained that he
did not know it. But when Balin came to himself he cried,--

"Oh, Balan, my brother, thou hast slain me, and I thee! Fate has done
deadly work this day."

"Heaven aid me!" cried Balan. "I should have known you by your two
swords, but your shield deceived me."

"A knight in the castle caused me to leave my own shield," said Balin.
"If I had life enough left me I would destroy that castle for its evil
customs."

"And I should aid you," said Balan. "They have held me here because I
happened to slay a knight that kept this island. And if you had slain me
and lived, you would have been held in the same way as their champion."

As they thus conversed there came to them the lady of the castle, with
four knights and six ladies and as many yeomen. The lady wept as she
heard them moan that they as brothers had slain each other, and she
promised them that they should be richly entombed on the spot in which
the battle had been fought.

"Now will you send for a priest," asked Balan, "that we may receive the
sacrament?"

"It shall be done," said the lady.

And so she sent for a priest and gave them the rites of the church.

"When we are buried in one tomb," said Balin, "and the inscription is
placed over us telling how two brothers here slew each other in
ignorance and valor, there will never good knight nor good man see our
tomb but they will pray for our souls, and bemoan our fate."

At this all the ladies wept for pity. Soon after Balan died, but Balin
lived till midnight. The lady thereupon had them both richly buried, and
the tomb inscribed as they had asked, though she knew not Balin's name.

But in the morning came the magician Merlin, who wrote Balin's name upon
the tomb in letters of gold, as follows: "Here lieth Balin le Savage,
the knight with the two swords, and he that smote the Dolorous Stroke."

More than this did Merlin, through this magic art. In that castle he
placed a bed, and ordained that whoever should lie therein would lose
his wits. And he took the sword which Balin had won from the damsel, and
removed its pommel, placing upon it another pommel. Then he asked a
knight beside him to lift that sword, but he tried to do so in vain.

"No man shall have power to handle that sword," said Merlin, "but the
best knight in the world; and that shall be Sir Launcelot, or his son
Sir Galahad. And Lau