"But when the Moslems saw him, they stood in firm array: He rode among their armed throng, he rode right furiously. 'Stand, stand, ye thieves and robbers, lay down my lady's pledge,' He cried, and ever as he cried, they felt his faulchion's edge. "That day when the lord of Vargas came to the camp alone, The scarf, his lady's largess, around his breast was thrown: Bare was his head, his sword was red, and from his pommel strung Seven turbans green, sore hack'd I ween, before Garci Perez hung." It casts a redeeming trait on this butchering sort or bravery to find that when the hero returned to the camp he steadily refused to reveal the name of the person who had so cravenly deserted him. But the favours which ladies presented to a knight were various; consisting of "jewels, ensigns of noblesse, scarfs, hoods, sleeves, mantles, bracelets, knots of ribbon; in a word, some detached part of their dress." These he always placed conspicuously on his person, and defended, as he would have done his life. Sometimes a lock of his fair one's hair inspired the hero: "Than did he her heere unfolde, And on his helme it set on hye, With rede thredes of ryche golde, Whiche he had of his lady. Full richely his shelde was wrought, With asure stones and beten golde, But on his lady was his thought, The yelowe heere what he dyd beholde."[73] It is recorded in "Perceforest," that at the end of one tournament "the ladies were so stripped of their head attire, that the greatest part of them were quite bareheaded, and appeared with their hair spread over their shoulders yellower than the finest gold; their robes also were without sleeves; for all had been given to adorn the knights; hoods, cloaks, kerchiefs, stomachers, and mantuas. But when they beheld themselves in this woful plight, they were greatly abashed, till, perceiving every one was in the same condition, they joined in laughing at this adventure, and that they should have engaged with such vehemence in stripping themselves of their clothes from off their backs, as never to have perceived the loss of them." A sleeve (more easily detached than we should fancy those of the present day) was a very usual token. Elayne, the faire mayden of Astolat gave Syr Launcelot "a reed sleeve of scarlet wel embroudred with grete perlys," which he wore for a token on his helmet; and in real life it is recorded that in a serious, but not desperate battle, at the court of Burgundy, in 1445, one of the knights received from his lady a sleeve of delicate dove colour, elegantly embroidered; and he fastened this favour on his left arm.