Commend me to the noble knights, your masters, and say, I should do ill to deprive them of steeds and arms which can never be used by braver cavaliers .-- I would I could here end my message to these gallant knights; but being, as I term myself, in truth and earnest, the Disinherited, I must be thus far bound to your masters, that they will, of their courtesy, be pleased to ransom their steeds and armour, since that which I wear I can hardly term mine own." "We stand commissioned, each of us," answered the squire of Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, "to offer a hundred zecchins in ransom of these horses and suits of armour." "It is sufficient," said the Disinherited Knight.

"Half the sum my present necessities compel me to accept; of the remaining half, distribute one moiety among yourselves, sir squires, and divide the other half betwixt the heralds and the pursuivants, and minstrels, and attendants." The squires, with cap in hand, and low reverences, expressed their deep sense of a courtesy and generosity not often practised, at least upon a scale so extensive.

The Disinherited Knight then addressed his discourse to Baldwin, the squire of Brian de Bois-Guilbert.

"From your master," said he, "I will accept neither arms nor ransom.

Say to him in my name, that our strife is not ended--no, not till we have fought as well with swords as with lances--as well on foot as on horseback.