here befell him a marvelous adventure. So he met at
the departing of the two ways two knights that led Lionel, his
brother, all naked, bounden upon a strong hackney, and his hands
bounden tofore his breast. And every each of them held in his hands
thorns wherewith they went beating him so sore that the blood trailed
down more than in an hundred places of his body, so that he was all
blood tofore and behind, but he said never a word; as he which was
great of heart he suffered all that ever they did to him as though he
had felt none anguish.

"Anon Sir Bors dressed him to rescue him that was his brother; and so
he looked upon the other side of him, and saw a knight which brought a
fair gentlewoman, and would have set her in the thickest place of the
forest for to have been the more surer out of the way from them that
sought him. And she which was nothing assured cried with a high voice:
'Saint Mary succor your maid.' And anon she espied where Sir Bors came
riding. And when she came nigh him she deemed him a knight of the
Round Table, whereof she hoped to have some comfort; and then she
conjured him: By the faith that he ought unto him in whose service
thou art entered in, and for the faith ye owe unto the high order of
knighthood, and for the noble King Arthur's sake, that I suppose that
made thee knight, that thou help me, and suffer me not to be shamed of
this knight. When--"

"Just a minute," Mallory interrupted, thoroughly bewildered and
simultaneously afflicted with an irrational sense of _deja vu_. "This
gentlewoman you speak of--would she by any chance be you?"

"Wit ye well, fair sir. When--"

"But if she's you, why don't you use the first person singular instead
of the third?"

"I wot not what--"

"Why don't you use 'I' instead of 'she' when you refer to yourself
directly?"

"It would not be fitting, fair knight. When Bors heard her say thus he
had so much sorrow there he nyst not what to do. For if I let my
brother be in adventure he must be slain, and that would I not for all
the earth. And if I help not the maid she is shamed for ever, and
also she shall lose her virginity the which she shall never get again.
Then lift he up his eyes and said weeping: Fair sweet Lord, whose
liege man I am, keep Lionel, my brother, that these knights slay him
not, and for pity of you, and for Mary's sake, I shall succor this
maid. Then dressed be him unto the knight the which had the
gentlewoman, and then--"