"Both of your brothers have gone down before this youth and so will you. Aren't you old?"
"Old with the strength of twenty boys," said Sir Evening-star.
"Old in boasting," Gareth cried, "but the same strength that slew your brothers can slay you."
Then the Evening-star blew a deadly note upon his horn and a storm-beaten, russet, grizzly old woman came out and armed him in a quantity of dingy weapons. The two knights clashed together on the bridge and Gareth brought the Evening-star groveling in a minute to his feet on his knees. But the other vaulted up again so quickly that Gareth panted and half despaired of winning the victory.
Then Lynette cried: "Well done, knave; you are as noble as any knight. Now do not shame me; I said you would win. Strike! strike! and the wind will change again."
Gareth struck harder, he hewed great pieces of armor from the old knight, but clashed in vain with his sword against the hard skin, until at last he lashed the Evening-star's sword and broke it at the hilt. "I have you now!" he shouted, but the cowardly knight of the Evening-star writhed his arms about the lad till Gareth was almost strangled. Yet straining himself to the uttermost he finally tossed his foe headlong over the side of the bridge to sink or to swim as the waves allowed.
TOSSED HIS FOE OVER THE SIDE OF THE BRIDGE.
"Lead and I follow," Gareth said to Lynette.
"No, it is lead no longer," the maiden replied. "Ride beside me the knightliest of all kitchen knaves. Sir I am ashamed that I have treated you so. Pardon me. I do wonder who you are, you knave."