hands, and so they lay a great while sore astonied; and all they that were in the castle and in the siege wend their necks had been broken, and then many a stranger and other said the strange knight was a big man and a noble juster, for or now we saw never no knight match the red knight of the red lawns: thus they said, both within the castle and without. Then lightly they avoided their horses, and put their shields afore them, and drew their swords, and ran together like two fierce lions, and either gave other such buffets upon their helms that they reeled backward both two strides, and then they recovered both, and hewed great pieces of their harness and their shields, that a great part fell into the fields. CHAP. XVII. _How after long fighting Beaumains overcame the knight and would have slain him, but at the request of the lords he saved his life, and made him to yield him to the lady._ And then thus they fought till it was past noon and never would stint till at last they lacked wind both, and then they stood wagging and scattering, panting, blowing and bleeding, that all that beheld them for the most part wept for pity. So when they had rested them a while they went to battle again, tracing, racing, foining, as two boars. And at sometime they took their run as it had been two rams, and hurtled together that sometime they fell groveling to the earth: and at sometime they were so amazed that either took other’s sword in stead of his own.