"Call the woman of the house and tell her to bring the charger and the palfrey," Geraint cried angrily. "Your sweet face makes fools of good fellows." Geraint loved Enid still and he was in as great perplexity as she, for after misunderstanding what she had said he no more knew whether she cared for him truly than she knew what was troubling him and making him act in this unaccountable manner.
Enid slipped through the sleeping household like a ghost to deliver the prince's message to the landlord, hurried back to help Geraint with his armor and came down with him to spring upon her palfrey.
"What do I owe you, friends?" the prince asked his host, but before the man could reply he added "take those five horses and their burdens of arms."
"My lord, I have scarcely spent the price of one of them on you!" cried the landlord astonished.
"You'll have all the more riches then," the prince laughed, then turning to Enid, "today I charge you more particularly than ever before that whatever you may see, hear, fancy or imagine, do not speak to me, but obey."
"Yes, my lord," answered Enid, "I know your wish and should like to obey, but when I go riding ahead, I hear all the violent threats you do not hear and see the danger you cannot see, and then not to give you warning seems hard, almost beyond me. Yet, I wish to obey you."
"Do so, then," said he. "Do not be too wise, seeing that you are married, not to a clown but a strong man with arms to guard his own head and yours, too."
The broad beaten path which they now took passed through toward the wasted lands bordering on the castle of Earl Doorm, the Bull, as his people called him, because of his ferocity.
It was still early morning when Enid caught the sound of quantities of hoofs galloping up the road. Turning round she saw cloudsful of dust and the points of lances sparkling in it. Then, not to disobey the prince, yet to give him warning, she held up her finger and pointed toward the dust. Geraint was pleased at her cunning, and immediately stopped his horse. The moment after, the Earl of Limours dashed in upon him on a charger as black and as stormy as a thunder-cloud.
Geraint closed with the earl, bore down on him with his spear, and in a minute brought him stunned or dead to the ground. Then he turned to the next-comer after Limours, overthrew him and blindly rushed back upon all the men behind. But they were so startled at the flash and movement of the prince that they scrambled away in a panic, leaving their leader lying on the public highway. The horses also of the fallen warriors whisked off from their wounded masters and wildly flew away to mix with the vanishing mob.