Six months were to elapse before the valiant and amorous Sueno de Quinones could be delivered from his shackle; and all that time was spent by him and his friends in exercising themselves to the use of the lance, and in providing stores of harness and lances for such knights as would joust with them. The place that was arranged for the contest was the bridge Orbigo, six hours' ride from Leon, and three from Astorga. The marble effigies of a herald was set-up in the road; and by the label in its right hand travellers were acquainted that they had reached the passage of arms. The lists were erected in a beautiful plain formed by nature in a neighbouring wood. Tents for banqueting and repose were raised, and amply furnished by the liberality of Sueno. One tent was admirable for the beauty of its decorations, and more so for its purpose. It contained seven noble ladies, who, at the request of the mother of Sueno, devoted themselves to attend upon such of the knights as should be wounded in the joust. At the time appointed, Sueno de Quinones appeared in the lists with his nine companions, all arrayed in the most splendid tourneying harness, the enamoured knight himself bearing round his neck the chain of his mistress, with the motto, which his friends also wore on some part of their armour, "Il faut délibérer." Many stranger knights jousted with him, and his success was generally distinguished. The fair penitents to the shrine of the saint were stopped; and such as were of noble birth were asked by the King's herald to deliver their gloves. The pride and prerogatives of the sex were offended at this demand: the ladies resisted, as much as words and looks of high disdain could resist, the representative of the King; but they yielded with grace and pleasure, when they were asked to surrender their gloves in the name of the laws of chivalry, of those laws which had been made under their auspices, and for their benefit. There was no lack of knights to peril themselves for the recovery of these gloves in the listed plain; and if the champions of the dames were ever worsted by the hardier sons of chivalry, the gallantry of the judges of the tournament would not permit the ladies to suffer from any want of skill or good fortune in their chosen knights. When the thirty days had expired, it appeared that sixty-eight knights had entered the lists against Sueno de Quinones; and in seven hundred and twenty-seven encounters only sixty-six lances had been broken;--a chivalric phrase, expressive either of the actual shivering of lances, or of men being thrown out of their saddles. The judges of the tournament, however, declared, that although the number of lances broken was not equal to the undertaking, yet as such a partial performance of the conditions of the passage at arms had not been the fault of Sueno de Quinones, they commanded the king at arms to take the chain from his neck, and to declare that the emprise had been achieved: