"King Mark," he cried, "beware how you come nigh me. I saved the life of Alexander, and glory in it, for you slew his father cowardly and treacherously. And it is my hope and prayer that the youth may have the strength and spirit to revenge the good Prince Baldwin on his murderer." "What, traitor! What, dog! Do you dare rail thus at me?" cried the king, and in a voice of fury he bade four knights of his following to slay the traitor. These knights drew their swords and advanced in a body on Sadok; but he got the wall of them, and fought so shrewdly that he killed the whole four in King Mark's presence. Then, shaking his clinched fist at the king, he said,-- "I would add your false body to the heap, but that I leave you for Alexander's revenge." This said, he took horse and rode briskly away, and in all his court Mark could not find a knight willing to pursue him, for all that held with the king feared the old knight's sturdy arm. King Mark now finding his wrath of no avail, set himself to devising some scheme of treachery by which the danger that threatened him might be removed. In the end he made a compact with Morgan le Fay and the queen of Northgalis, both false sorceresses, in which they agreed to fill the land with ladies that were enchantresses, and with false knights like Malgrim and Breuse Sans Pité, so that the young knight Alexander le Orphelin should be surrounded with magic and treachery, and without doubt be taken prisoner or slain. Soon after his knighting, Alexander set out for King Arthur's court, and on the way there had many adventures, in which he proved himself a knight of great valor and skill. Among these was a mighty battle with the false knight Malgrim, whom in the end he killed. But now Morgan le Fay sought to entrap him by her false devices. She gave him a sleeping draught, and had him taken in a horse-litter to a castle of hers named La Belle Regard. Here she cured him of his wounds by healing salves, but not until he had promised that he would not set foot beyond the boundaries of that castle for a twelvemonth and a day. When he had recovered, Alexander chafed bitterly at his confinement, for he felt sure that the pledge had been exacted from him to save King Mark from his vow of revenge. Yet his word held him close prisoner. As one day he wandered through the halls of the castle, like a young lion in a cage,--now heavy and sad, now burning with desire for action,--there came to him a damsel who was cousin to Morgan le Fay, and to whom the castle of La Belle Regard by right belonged. "Sir knight," she said to him, "I find you doleful of aspect; yet I bear tidings that should make you merry!" "I pray you tell them to me," he answered. "I am here now a prisoner by promise, but must say that time hangs very heavy on my hands." "You are more of a prisoner than you deem," she replied. "My cousin, Morgan le Fay, keeps you here for purposes of her own which you will scarcely find to your liking."