Page:The venture; an annual of art and literature.djvu/115

 which with great white and green plumes, and gilded in places, gave forth great brightness, and the other his lance painted with the like colours, and three pages followed wearing the same livery, insomuch that all eyes were turned upon him and his retinue. The Princess recognised him immediately with great content, knowing him of old for one of the best cavaliers in the world, and all who saw him enter the square said with one voice "He is the most spirited, the best equipped, and the comeliest knight that hath come hither, God make him such in the fray as he promiseth by his countenance." And he riding round the lists that all might view him, came before the King and Princess, made his due reverence with all grace and courtesy, and well marked by the signs which the Princess gave him, how content she was to behold him. And so when all were ranged in quietness in the square, the signal was given with trumpets and other martial instruments, as customary on the like occasions, and the jousting began. And there were many and fine encounters; sometimes with shocks so fierce that the armour of the knights was wrested from their bodies and sent flying through the air, and some who could not recover themselves came to the ground, and some fell, horse and man. But it so befell our Portuguese that while all the rest received some check, great or small, he received none, but did great displeasure to others, for in his three first courses he overthrew three famous knights who little deemed to have fallen so soon, and this without breaking his first lance. When this was broken his pages gave him another, and with