So on the morrow they rode all three towards Listeniss, and travelled fifteen days, and reached it on the day the feast began.  Then they alighted and stabled their horses, and went up to the castle, and Sir Balin’s host was denied entrance, having no lady with him.  But Sir Balin was right heartily received, and taken to a chamber, where they unarmed him, and dressed him in rich robes, of any colour that he chose, and told him he must lay aside his sword.  This, however, he refused, and said, “It is the custom of my country for a knight to keep his sword ever with him; and if I may not keep it here, I will forthwith depart.”  Then they gave him leave to wear his sword.  So he went to the great hall, and was set among knights of rank and worship, and his lady before him.

Soon he found means to ask one who sat near him, “Is there not here a knight whose name is Garlon?”

“Yonder he goeth,” said his neighbour, “he with that black face; he is the most marvellous knight alive, for he rideth invisibly, and destroyeth whom he will.”

“Ah, well,” said Balin, drawing a long breath, “is that indeed the man?  I have aforetime heard of him.”

Then he mused long within himself, and thought, “If I shall slay him here and now, I shall not escape myself; but if I leave him, peradventure I shall never meet with him again at such advantage; and if he live, how much more harm and mischief will he do!”

But while he deeply thought, and cast his eyes from time to time upon Sir Garlon, that false knight saw that he watched him, and thinking that he could at such a time escape revenge, he came and smote Sir Balin on the face with the back of his hand, and said, “Knight, why dost thou so watch me? be ashamed, and eat thy meat, and do that which thou camest for.”

“Thou sayest well,” cried Sir Balin, rising fiercely; “now will I straightway do that which I came to do, as thou shalt find.”  With that he whirled his sword aloft and struck him downright on the head, and clove his skull asunder to the shoulder.

“Give me the truncheon,” cried out Sir Balin to his lady, “wherewith he slew thy knight.”  And when she gave it him—­for she had always carried it about with her, wherever she had gone—­he smote him through the body with it, and said, “With that truncheon didst thou treacherously murder a good knight, and now it sticketh in thy felon body.”

Then he called to the father of the wounded son, who had come with him to Listeniss, and said, “Now take as much blood as thou wilt, to heal thy son withal.”

But now arose a terrible confusion, and all the knights leaped from the table to slay Balin, King Pelles himself the foremost, who cried out, “Knight, thou hast slain my brother at my board; die, therefore, die, for thou shalt never leave this castle.”

“Slay me, thyself, then,” shouted Balin.

“Yea,” said the king, “that will I! for no other man shall touch thee, for the love I bear my brother.”