"Hush, my lady, you don't want to be dishonored. I'm terribly afraid that the empress will hear you. Be quiet: this is your knight who is ready to die for you." "Oh, you wicked girl!" said the princess. "You've had no fear of me or shame of the world. Without my consent you've put me in a very bad situation and defamed me." "What's done is done, my lady," said Plaerdemavida. "It seems to me that being quiet is the only solution for you and me: it's the safest thing, and what's best in this case." Tirant softly pleaded with her as well as he could. She found herself in a difficult situation, because love was conquering her on the one hand, and fear on the other, but since fear was stronger than love, she decided to be still and she said nothing. When the princess first screamed, Widow Repose heard her, and she was fully aware that the cause of that scream had been Plaerdemavida, and that Tirant must be with her. And she thought that if Tirant was seducing the princess, she couldn't accomplish her own desire with him. Now everyone was silent and the princess was not saying a thing, but instead was defending herself with graceful words so that the pleasant battle would not come to an end. The Widow sat bolt upright in her bed and cried out: "My daughter, what's wrong?" She woke up all the girls, shrieking loudly and making so much noise that the empress heard it. They all got up, some entirely naked and others in their nightshirts, and quickly ran to the door of the bedchamber which they found closed fast, and they cried out for a light. At the very moment that they were pounding on the door and calling for light, Plaerdemavida seized Tirant by the hair, and pulled him from the place where he would have liked to end his life. She led him to a small chamber and made him jump to a rooftop there. Then she gave him a hemp rope so that he could drop down to the garden and from there could open the gate. She had it very well prepared so that when he came he could leave by another door before daybreak. But the disturbance and the cries of the Widow and the girls were so loud that she could not let him out the way she had planned, and she was forced to let him out by the roof. So, giving him the long rope, she quickly turned and closed the window and then went back to her lady. Tirant turned around and tied the rope securely, and in his haste to leave without being seen or heard, he did not watch carefully to see whether or not the rope reached the ground. He let himself slide down the rope which hung more than thirty-five feet from the ground. He had to let go because his arms could not hold the weight of his body, and he hit the ground so hard that he broke his leg. Let us leave Tirant stretched out on the ground, unable to move. When Plaerdemavida returned, they brought the light, and all the women came in with the empress who immediately asked what the disturbance was and why she had cried out.