he wist not what was to befall him in that affair at arms.

But that same while Sir Launcelot neither moved nor spake but sat his
horse like to a statue made of iron; calm and steadfast and gazing very
steadily out upon that plain before him.

Then Sir Lavaine spake in a voice wonderfully high and clear. "Messire,"
said he, "upon what side do you will that we take part in this battle?"

Quoth Sir Launcelot: "To neither party do I yet will that we shall join
us. Rather let us wait a while and observe the issue of this battle, and
when we behold that one side is about to lose in the battle then will we
join with that side. For if so be we aid to bring victory out of defeat
for that party, then shall our credit and our glory be magnified in that
same degree." And Sir Lavaine said, "Sir, thou speakest with great
wisdom."

Then, as those two watched in that wise, they beheld that three
knights-champion came forth from one side and that three champions came
forth from the other side and they wist that these six champions were to
engage man to man and so to test the strength of this side and of that
ere the two arrays should join in battle-royal. And Sir Launcelot knew
these six champions very well and he declared to Sir Lavaine who they
were. To wit, he declared that the champions upon King Arthur's side
were the King of Scots and the King of Ireland and Sir Palamydes, and
that the knights of the other party were the King of Northumberland, and
the King of an Hundred Knights, and Galahaut the High Prince.

[Sidenote: _How the battle openeth._]

Then, even as Sir Launcelot was telling Sir Lavaine who were these six
champions who thus stood forth to undertake battle against one another,
the herald blew his trumpet very loud and shrill. And therewith, in an
instant of time, each knight had set spurs to his horse, and each horse
leaped forward from his station and rushed forward, and so they came,
three knights against three, like to thunderbolts launched against one
another. So they met together in the midst of the course with a crash of
splintering wood and a roar of armor that might easily have been heard a
mile away. In that meeting Sir Palamydes and Sir Galahaut the High
Prince smote down one another into the dust. And the King of an Hundred
Knights smote down King Angus of Ireland with such terrible violence
that he lay like dead upon the ground and had to be borne away out of
the field by his esquires and could not a