Leonatus also at this crisis had returned from Rome, and, disguised as a poor soldier, he fought in the ranks of the British. Meeting Iachimo, who was commanding the Roman troops, Leonatus fought with him on the battle-field and vanquished him. The proud Roman was deeply mortified that a noble knight like himself should be overcome and disarmed by one whom he imagined to be a low churl. Repentance for the base way in which he had behaved to Imogen stirred in his heart; he thought it was the guilt and heaviness of his own soul that in this combat had unnerved his manhood and enfeebled his arm. As for Leonatus, he fought in reckless despair, his grief for Imogen’s murder, which he believed Pisanio to have carried out, making him long for the death which seemed to shun him. The valour of Guiderius and Arviragus had soon an opportunity of displaying itself. The British, sorely bested, were in act of flight, and Cymbeline had been captured by the Romans, when Belarius and the two Princes went to his assistance, and with the aid of Leonatus succeeded in rescuing the King. By their desperate courage they drove back the flying Britons, and forced them to rally and resist the foe, and finally achieve a brilliant victory. After the skirmish, some British soldiers coming across Leonatus, took him for a fugitive from the Romans, and put him into prison. Leonatus was ready to welcome bondage, for it was a way, as he looked at it, to liberty. Death was the key that would unbar those locks; his conscience was more heavily fettered than his limbs. It was not enough to be sorry; he longed to die. For Imogen’s dear life, which he had stolen from her, he would gladly yield up his own. When, therefore, the gaolers came the following morning to lead him forth to death, Leonatus told them he was more than ready--he was merrier to die than they to live. Another messenger arriving with an order that his fetters were to be knocked off, and that he was to be conducted to the King. Leonatus followed him willingly, believing that at last the moment for death had come. Cymbeline was seated in his tent, and at his side stood his three preservers--the aged warrior, with white flowing beard, and the two gallant striplings. A fourth was missing, and Cymbeline lamented for him--a poor soldier, he said, who fought so nobly that his rags shamed gilded arms. Anyone who found him should receive the highest favour from the King. No one could give tidings of this hero, but Cymbeline proceeded to confer the honour of knighthood on the three other champions, and to appoint them companions to his own person, with dignities becoming their estate.