"It is more than a year and a half," he continued, "that I have set all my aim to find and encounter you, and now, I thank God, I see you and speak to you. It shall soon be known who is prowest, you or I. You have often vaunted your desire to meet me; now you may see me before you.--I am John Chandos: regard me well," he thundered in their ears, his countenance darkening as he spoke. At that moment an English squire was struck to the earth by the lance of a Breton. The generous nature of Chandos was rouzed at this ungallant act; and, in a tone of mingled expostulation and reproof, he cried to his own company, "Sirs, how is it that you suffer this squire thus to be slain? A foot, a foot!" He dismounted, and so did all his band, and they advanced against the French. His banner, with the escutcheon above his arms, was carried before him, and some of his men-at-arms surrounded it. Chandos missed his steps, for the ground was slippery from the hoar-frost of the morning, and in his impatience for battle he entangled his feet in the folds of his surcoat. He fell just as he reached his enemy; and as he was rising, the lance of a French squire entered his flesh, under the left eye, between the nose and the forehead. Chandos could not see to ward off the stroke; for, some years before, he had lost the sight of that eye, while hunting the hart in the country round Bourdeaux: unhappily, too, his helmet was without the defence of its vizor. He fell upon the earth, and rolled over two or three times, from the pain of the wound, but he never spoke again. The French endeavoured to seize him; but his uncle, Sir Edward Clifford, bestrode the body, and defended it so valorously, that soon none dared to approach him. [Sidenote: Grief at his death.] The barons and knights of Poictou were conquerors, and when the confusion was hushed, they flocked round their outstretched friend and seneschal. They wept, they wrung their hands, they tore their hair, and gave way to every violent expression of grief. They called him the flower of chivalry, and lamented the hour when the lance was forged which had brought him into peril of death. He heard and understood them well, but was unable to reply. His servants then unarmed him; and, laying him upon a pavesse, or large shield, they bore him gently to the neighbouring fortress of Mortimer. He died on the following day; and a cavalier more courteous, and more worthily adorned with noble virtues and high qualities, never adorned the English chivalry. He was, in sooth, as gallant a knight as ever laid lance in rest.