All shall be iron;” he loosed a mighty purse,
  Hung at his belt, and hurl’d it toward the squire. 
  So the last sight that Enid had of home
  Was all the marble threshold flashing, strown
  With gold and scatter’d coinage, and the squire
  Chafing his shoulder:  then he cried again,
  “To the wilds!” and Enid leading down the tracks
  Thro’ which he bade her lead him on, they past
  The marches, and by bandit-haunted holds,
  Gray swamps and pools, waste places of the hern,
  And wildernesses, perilous paths, they rode: 
  Round was their pace at first, but slacken’d soon: 
  A stranger meeting them had surely thought
  They rode so slowly and they look’d so pale,
  That each had suffered some exceeding wrong. 
  For he was ever saying to himself,
  “O I that wasted time to tend upon her,
  To compass her with sweet observances,
  To dress her beautifully and keep her true”—­
  And there he broke the sentence in his heart
  Abruptly, as a man upon his tongue
  May break it, when his passion masters him,
  And she was ever praying the sweet heavens
  To save her dear lord whole from any wound. 
  And ever in her mind she cast about
  For that unnoticed failing in herself,
  Which made him look so cloudy and so cold;
  Till the great plover’s human whistle amazed
  Her heart, and glancing round the waste she fear’d
  In every wavering brake an ambuscade. 
  Then thought again, “If there be such in me,
  I might amend it by the grace of Heaven,
  If he would only speak and tell me of it.”

    But when the fourth part of the day was gone,
  Then Enid was aware of three tall knights
  On horseback, wholly arm d, behind a rock
  In shadow, waiting for them, caitiffs all;
  And heard one crying to his fellow, “Look,
  Here comes a laggard hanging down his head,
  Who seems no bolder than a beaten hound;
  Come, we will slay him and will have his horse
  And armor, and his damsel shall be ours.”

[Illustration:  ENID LEADS THE WAY]

    Then Enid ponder’d in her heart, and said: 
  “I will go back a little to my lord,
  And I will tell him all their caitiff talk;
  For, be he wroth even to slaying me,
  Far liefer by his dear hand had I die,
  Than that my lord should suffer loss or shame.”

    Then she went back some paces of return,
  Met his full frown timidly firm, and said: 
  “My lord, I saw three bandits by the rock
  Waiting to fall on you, and heard them boast
  That they would slay you, and possess your horse
  And armor, and your damsel should be theirs.”

    He made a wrathful answer:  “Did I wish
  Your warning or your silence? one command
  I laid upon you, not to speak to me,
  And thus ye keep it!  Well then, look—­for now,
  Whether ye wish me victory or defeat,
  Long for my life, or hunger for my death,
  Yourself shall see my vigor is not lost.”