Before a gloom of stubborn-shafted oaks, Three other horsemen waiting, wholly arm'd, Whereof one seem'd far larger than her lord, And shook her pulses, crying, "Look, a prize! Three horses and three goodly suits of arms, And all in charge of whom? a girl: set on." "Nay," said the second, "yonder comes a knight." The third, "A craven; how he hangs his head." The giant answer'd merrily, "Yea, but one? Wait here, and when he passes fall upon him." And Enid ponder'd in her heart and said, "I will abide the coming of my lord, And I will tell him all their villany. My lord is weary with the fight before, And they will fall upon him unawares. I needs must disobey him for his good; How should I dare obey him to his harm? Needs must I speak, and tho' he kill me for it, I save a life dearer to me than mine." And she abode his coming, and said to him With timid firmness, "Have I leave to speak?" He said, "Ye take it, speaking," and she spoke. "There lurk three villains yonder in the wood, And each of them is wholly arm'd, and one Is larger-limb'd than you are, and they say That they will fall upon you while ye pass." To which he flung a wrathful answer back: "And if there were an hundred in the wood, And every man were larger-limb'd than I, And all at once should sally upon me, I swear it would not ruffle me so much As you that not obey me. Stand aside, And if I fall, cleave to the better man." And Enid stood aside to wait the event, Not dare to watch the combat, only breathe Short fits of prayer, at every stroke a breath. And he, she dreaded most, bare down upon him. Aim'd at the helm, his lance err'd; but Geraint's, A little in the late encounter strain'd, Struck thro' the bulky bandit's corselet home, And then brake short, and down his enemy roll'd, And there lay still; as he that tells the tale Saw once a great piece of a promontory, That had a sapling growing on it, slide From the long shore-cliff's windy walls to the beach, And there lie still, and yet the sapling grew: So lay the man transfixt. His craven pair Of comrades making slowlier at the Prince, When now they saw their bulwark fallen, stood; On whom the victor, to confound them more, Spurr'd with his terrible war-cry; for as one, That listens near a torrent mountain-brook, All thro' the crash of the near cataract hears The drumming thunder of the huger fall At distance, were the soldiers wont to hear His voice in battle, and be kindled by it, And foemen scared, like that false pair who turn'd Flying, but, overtaken, died the death Themselves had wrought on many an innocent.