e damsel of the castle saw this, and found that no words of hers
would rouse Alexander from his blind folly, she burned with indignation,
and bethought her of a sharper means of bringing him back to his lost
senses.

So she put on her armor and took a sword in her hand, and, mounting a
horse, rode upon him with the fury of a knight, giving him such a buffet
on the helm that he thought that fire flew from his eyes.

When the besotted lover felt this stroke he came of a sudden to his
wits, and felt for his sword. But the damsel fled to the pavilion and
Mordred to the forest, so that Alexander was left raging there, with no
foe to repay for that stinging blow.

When he came to understand how the false knight would have shamed him,
his heart burned with wrath that Sir Mordred had escaped his hands. But
the two ladies had many a jest upon him for the knightly stroke which
the damsel had given him on the helm.

"Good faith," she said, "I knew not how else to bring back his strayed
wits. I fancy I would have given him some shrewd work to do if I had
chosen to stand against him. These men think that none but they can wear
armor and wield swords. I took pity on your champion, Alice, or it might
have gone hard with him," and she laughed so merrily that they could not
but join her in her mirth.

After that nearly every day Alexander jousted with knights of honor and
renown, but of them all not one was able to put him to the worse, and he
held his ground to the twelvemonth's end, proving himself a knight of
the noblest prowess.

When the year had reached its end and his pledge was fully kept, he
departed from that place with Alice la Belle Pilgrim, who afterwards
became his loving wife, and they lived together with great joy and
happiness in her country of Benoye.

But though he let love set aside for the time his vow of revenge on King
Mark, he did not forget the duty that lay before him, nor did that
evil-minded king rest at ease under the knowledge that an avenger was in
the land. Many a false scheme he devised to keep Alexander from his
court, and in the end his treacherous plots proved successful, for the
young knight was murdered by some of King Mark's emissaries, with his
father's death still unrevenged.

But vengeance sleeps not, and destiny had decided that the false-hearted
king should yet die in retribution for the murder of Prince Baldwin.
Alexander left a son, who was named Bellengerus le Beuse, and who grew