wisdom, and great marvellous beauty, and gentleness, and nobleness of blood." So deep an impression did they make on their lord that he was "greatly overcome with love for the maiden" and promptly dispatched these same merchants, and with them a heathen Admiral, to demand her in marriage. Tiberius sent back the messengers with great honour, giving his consent if his prospective son-in-law on his part would agree to become a Christian. "And the Admiral, before the Sultan and all his council, vowed himself to the Christian faith, if the Sultan should consent." The impatient lover soon agreed, and Constance accordingly set sail for Saracenland under escort of "a cardinal bishop, and a cardinal priest, with a great number of clergy, and a senator of Rome, with noble chivalry and great and rich array, and with a great number of Christians who went thither, some on pilgrimage, others to take possession of Jerusalem." The Sultan's mother, seeing her religion in danger, determined to rid the land of these invaders. Having made a covenant with seven hundred Saracens, who swore to aid her, she invited all the Christians to a great feast, professing that she herself desired to embrace their religion. At a given signal the seven hundred Saracens fell upon the unarmed guests, and of the whole number there escaped but three young men and Constance herself. The Sultan, the Admiral, and the other converts were involved in the general massacre. The three young men fled to Rome, where they told the Emperor that his daughter had perished with the rest. Constance, having refused to renounce her faith, "for no fair promise of wealth or honour, nor for any threat of punishment or death," is set adrift in an open boat, with provision enough to last her for three years, and also with all the treasure which she had brought with her as a bride. For three whole years she drifts about on the great ocean. "Then, in the eighth month of the fourth year, God who steered the ship of the holy man Noah in the great flood, sent a favourable wind, and drove the ship to England, under a castle in the kingdom of Northumberland, near Humber." Elda, the warden of the castle, goes down to ask her of her condition. "And she answered him in Saxon ... as one who was learned in divers languages, as is aforesaid." The good warden receives her hospitably, and his wife Hermingild becomes so enamoured of the maiden "that nothing could happen to her that she would not do according to her will." Then follows the conversion of Hermingild and Elda owing to a miracle wrought by Constance upon a blind man. Elda tells Alle, King of Northumberland, of the wonderful maiden at his castle, and Alle is about to visit her when dire distress falls upon the three friends. A felon knight, to whose suit Constance has turned a deaf ear, murders Hermingild and contrives that suspicion shall fall upon Constance. Elda cannot believe her capable of such treachery, whereupon