[Sidenote:  Sir Tristram departs for the island of Sir Nabon] Now when the next morning had come, Sir Tristram armed himself and mounted upon his war-horse, and rode him to a certain place on the shore.  There he found some mariners in haven with a large boat, and to these he paid ten pieces of silver money to bear him across the sea to that island where Sir Nabon le Noir abided.  At first these mariners said they would not sail to such a coast of danger and death; but afterward they said they would, and they did do so.  But still they would not bring Sir Tristram to land nigh to the castle, but only at a place that was a great way off, and where they deemed themselves to be more safe from the cruel lord of that land.

As for Sir Tristram he made merry with their fear, saying:  “It is well that we who are knights-errant have more courage than you who are sailor-men, else it would not be possible that monsters such as this Sir Nabon should ever be made an end of.”

Upon this the captain of these sailors replied:  “Well, Messire, for the matter of that, it is true that mariners such as we have not much courage, for we are the first of our order who have dared to come hither.  But it is also true that you are the first errant-knight who hath ever had courage to come hither.  So what say you for the courage of your own order?” And at that Sir Tristram laughed with great good will and rode his way.

[Sidenote:  Sir Tristram arrives at the castle of Sir Nabon] Thereafter he rode forward along the coast of that land for several leagues, with the noise of the sea ever beating in his ears, and the shrill clamor of the sea-fowl ever sounding in the air about him.  By and by he came to a place of certain high fells, and therefrom perceived before him in the distance a tall and forbidding castle standing upon a high headland of the coast.  And the castle was built of stone, that was like the rocks upon which it stood, so that at first one could not tell whether what one beheld was a part of the cliffs or whether it was the habitation of man.  But when Sir Tristram had come somewhat nearer, he perceived the windows of the castle shining against the sky, and he saw the gateway thereof, and the roofs and the chimneys thereof, so that he knew that it was a castle of great size and strength and no wall of rock as he had at first supposed it to be; and he wist that this must be the castle of that wicked and malignant knight, Sir Nabon, whom he sought.

Now as Sir Tristram wended his way toward that castle by a crooked path meditating how he should come at Sir Nabon for to challenge him to battle, he was by and by aware of a fellow clad in pied black and white, who walked along the way in the direction that he himself was taking.  At the first that fellow was not aware of Sir Tristram; then presently he was aware of him and turned him about, and beheld that a strange knight was riding rapidly down toward him upon a horse.