Page 59 (1/2)

IN WHICH THE NARRATIVE OF OUR KNIGHT'S MISHAP IS CONTINUED

Finding, then, that, in fact he could notrecourse to his usual ree

in his books, and his craze brought to his mind that about Baldwin and

the Marquis of Mantua, when Carloto left him wounded on the mountain

side, a story known by heart by the children, not forgotten by the young

men, and lauded and even believed by the old folk; and for all that not a

whit truer than the miracles of Mahomet This seemed to him to fit

exactly the case in which he found hian to roll on the ground and with feeble breath repeat

the very words which the wounded knight of the wood is said to have

uttered:

Where art thou, lady mine, that thou

My sorrow dost not rue?

Thou canst not know it, lady mine,

Or else thou art untrue

And so he went on with the ballad as far as the lines:

O noble Marquis of Mantua,

My Uncle and liege lord!

As chance would have it, when he had got to this line there happened to

cohbour of his, who had been