flowers. "And one day," she cried, holding fast to him and
trembling, "one day Flumen will have me, when thou art gone."

"Not so," said he, "by the faith of my body that foul fiend shall never
have thee. I will bind him, I will compel him, or die in the deed."

So he went forth, upward along the river, till he came to a strait Place
among the hills. There was a great rock full of caves and hollows, and
there the water whirled and burbled in furious wise. "Here," thought he,
"is the hold of the knave Flumen, and if I may cut through above this
rock and make a dyke with a gate in it, to let down the water another
way when the floods come, so shall I spoil him of his craft and put him
to the worse."

Then he toiled day and night to make the dyke, and ever by night
Flumen came and strove with him, and did his power to cast him down and
strangle him. But Martimor stood fast and drave him back.

And at last, as they wrestled and whapped together, they fell headlong
in the stream.

"Ho-o!" shouted Flumen, "now will I drown thee, and mar the Mill and the
Maid."

But Martimor gripped him by the neck and thrust his head betwixt the
leaves of the gate and shut them fast, so that his eyes stood out
like gobbets of foam, and his black tongue hung from his mouth like a
water-weed.

"Now shalt thou swear never to mar Mill nor Maid, but meekly to serve
them," cried Martimor. Then Flumen sware by wind and wave, by storm and
stream, by rain and river, by pond and pool, by flood and fountain, by
dyke and dam.

"These be changeable things," said Martimor, "swear by the Name of God."

So he sware, and even as the Name passed his teeth, the gobbets of foam
floated forth from the gate, and the water-weed writhed away with the
stream, and the river flowed fair and softly, with a sound like singing.

Then Martimor came back to the Mill, and told how Flumen was overcome
and made to swear a pact. Thus their hearts waxed light and jolly, and
they kept that day as it were a love-day.

VII

How Martimor Bled for a Lady and Lived for a Maid, and how His Great
Adventure Ended and Began at the Mill

Now leave we of the Mill and Martimor and the Maid, and let us speak
of a certain Lady, passing tall and fair and young. This was the Lady
Beauvivante, that was daughter to King Pellinore. And three false
knights took her by craft from her father's court and led her away to
work their will on her. But she escaped from them as they slep