in a quiver. in charge of

my men!"

"Three horses and three suits of armor, and all whom? A girl! Isn't that simple? Lay on,

"No," cried the second, "behind is coming a knight. A coward and a fool, for see how he hangs his head.”

The giant thundered back gaily.

"Yes? Only one? Wait here and as he goes by make for him."

"I will go no farther until Geraint comes," Enid said to herself stopping her horse. "And then I will tell him about these villains. He must be so weary with his other fight and they will fall upon him unawares. I shall have to disobey him again for his own sake. How could I dare to obey him and let him be harmed? I must speak; if he kills me for it I shall only have lost my own life to save a life that is dearer to me than my own."

So she waited until the prince approached when she said with a timid firmness, "Have I your leave to speak?"

"You take it without asking when you speak,” he replied, and she continued:

"There are three men lurking in the woods behind some oaks and one of them is larger than you, a perfect giant. He told them to attack you as you passed by them.'

"If there were a hundred men in the wood and each of them a giant and if they all made for me together I vow it would not anger me so as to have you disobey me. Stand aside while we do battle and when we are done stand by the victor."

At this, while Enid fell back breathing short fits of prayer but not daring to watch, Geraint proceeded to meet his assailants. The giant was the first to dash out for him aiming his lance at Geraint's helmet, but the lance missed and went to one

side. Geraint's spear had been a little strained with his first encounter, but it struck through the bulky giant's corselet and pierced his breast, then broke, one-half of it still fast in the flesh as the giant knight fell to the earth. The other two bandits now felt that their support and hero was gone, and when Geraint darted rapidly on them, uttering his terrible warcry as if there were a thousand men behind him to come to his aid, they flew into the woods. But they were soon overtaken and pitilessly put to death. Then Geraint, selecting the best lance, the brightest and strongest among their spears to replace the one he had broken on the giant, he plucked off the gaudy armor from each brigand's body, laid it on the backs of the three horses, tied the bridle reins together and handed them to Enid with the words, "Drive them on before you.

So Enid now followed the wild paths of the gloomy forest with two sets of three horses, each horse laden with his master's jingling weapons and coat of mail. Geraint came after. As they passed out of the wood into the open sky they came to a little town with towers upon a rocky hill, and beneath it a wide meadowland with mowers in it, mowing the hay. Down a stony pathway from the town skipped a fair-haired lad carrying a basket of lunch for the laborers in the field.

Friend!" cried Geraint, as the lad trotted past him, for he saw that Enid looked very white, "let my lady have something to eat. She is so faint."

"Willingly," the youth answered, "and you too, my lord, even although this feed is very coarse and only fit for the

mowers.

He set down his basket and Enid and Geraint alighted and put all the horses to graze, while they sat down on the green sward to have some bread and barley. Enid felt too faint at

heart, thinking of the prince's strange conduct, to care a great deal for food, but Geraint was hungry enough and had all the mowers' basket emptied almost before he knew it.

"Boy," he cried half-ashamed, "everything is gone, which is a disgrace. But take one of my horses and his arms by way of payment, choose the very best."

The poor lad, who might as well have had a kingdom given him, reddened with his extreme surprise and delight.

"My lord, you are over-paying me fifty times," he cried. "You will be all the wealthier then," returned the prince, gaily.

"I'll take it as free gift, then," the lad answered. "The food is not worth much. While your lady is resting here I can easily go back and fetch more, some more for the earl's mowers. For all these mowers belong to our great earl, and all these fields are his, and I am his, too. I'll tell him what a fine man your are, and he will have you to his palace and serve you with costly dinners."

"I wish no better fare than I have had," Geraint said, "I never ate better in my life than just now when I left your poor mowers dinnerless. And I will go into no earl's palace. If he desires to see me, let him come to me. Now you go hire us some pleasant room in the town, stall our horses and when you return with the food for these men tell us about it."

"Yes, my kind lord," the glad youth cried, and he held his head high and thought he was a gorgeous knight off to the wars as he disappeared up the rocky path leading his handsome horse.

The prince turned himself sleepily to watch the lusty mowers laboring under the sun as it blazed on their scythes, while Enid plucked the long grass by the meadows' edge to

weave it round and round her wedding ring, until the boy returned and showed them the room he had got in the town.

"If you wish anything, call the woman of the house," Prince Geraint said to Enid as the door closed behind them. "Do not speak to me."

"Yes, my lord," returned Enid, still marvelling at his cold

ways.

Silently they sat down, she at one end, he at the other, as quiet as pictures. But suddenly a mass of voices sounded up the street, and heel after heel echoing upon the pavement. In a twinkling the door to their room was pushed back to the wall while a mob of boisterous young gentlemen tumbled in led by the Earl of Limours, the wild lord of the town, and Enid's old suitor whom her father had rejected long ago, a man as beautiful as a woman and very graceful. He seized the prince's hand warmly, welcomed him to the town and stealthily, out of the corner of his eye, caught a glimpse of unhappy Enid nestled all alone at the farther end of the room.

The prince immediately sent for every sort of delicious things to eat and drink from the town, told the earl, to bid all his friends for a feast and soon was gaily making merry with the men, drinking, laughing, joking.

"May I have your leave, my lord," cried Earl Limours, "to cross the room and speak a word with your lady who seems so lonely?"

"My free leave," cried the merry Prince Geraint, who did not know the earl, "Get her to speak with you; she has nothing to say to me.

As Limours stepped to Enid's side he lifted his eyes adoringly, bowed at her side and said in a whisper:

“Enid, you pilot star of my life, I see that Geraint is very