Page:Tales from Chaucer.djvu/136

 the prize is your own.' Palamon accepted his challenge, and so they separated until the morrow. Truly is it said that neither love nor royalty can endure fellowship in dominion: and so found Palamon and Arcite.

The younger Knight had ridden back into the town, and on the morrow, before daybreak, having secretly provided two complete equipments of armour, ready for their contest, he rode forth alone, carrying the whole on his horse before him. In the grove and at the time and place appointed they met. The colour fled from their faces at the first exchange of looks:—like a Thracian hunter, who stands in a gap with his spear, waiting for the roused bear or lion, and hears him coming through the underwood, crushing boughs and leaves in his passage, and thinks, 'Here comes my mortal enemy, whom without fail I must kill, or he will take my life:' so it was with these from the moment either caught sight of the other. No salutation, no compliment, passed at meeting, but each helped to arm his antagonist as friendly as he would his own brother; and then, with their sharp strong spears