Tristram now looked despairingly on his unarmed form, and saw that many of his assailants wore armor of proof. Death was sure unless he could find some means of escape. He knew that the chapel stood on the brow of the cliff, and here seemed his only hope of safety, though it was a perilous one. Quickly retreating, he shut and barred the door, and then with hand and sword wrenched and tore the iron bars from a window over the cliff, out of which he desperately leaped.
The descent was a deep one, but he fortunately reached the sea below without striking any of the rocks in his descent. Here he drew himself into a crevice at the foot of the cliff.
Those above rushed to the rocky edge and looked down into the boiling waters far below, but they saw nothing of the daring knight, and after a long and vain effort to see him, went away to report to the king that his enemy was drowned.
But while King Mark and Tristram's enemies were congratulating one another upon this, there came to the top of the cliff, Gouvernail, Lambegus, and others of Tristram's men, who, looking down, saw him creeping up from the water to a safer place of shelter among the rocks. Hailing him, they bade him to be of good heart, and, letting down a rope which they quickly procured, they managed to draw him up to the summit, where they congratulated him warmly on his escape. Without delay, however, he left that spot, for fear of his foes returning, and sought a place of shelter in the forest.
[Illustration: THE CLIFFS ABOVE THE SEA.]
Here he abode for some time, but the news of his escape got abroad, to the discomfiture of his foes. And on a day when he had fallen asleep, a man to whom he had done some injury crept up and shot him in the shoulder with an arrow. Tristram sprang up and killed the man, but the wound pained him day by day. And on news of it being brought to La Belle Isolde she sent him word by Dame Bragwaine that the arrow had been poisoned, and with a venom that no leech in England could cure. "My lady, La Belle Isolde, bids you haste into Brittany to King Howell," said Dame Bragwaine, "for she knows no one who can help you but his daughter, Isolde la Blanche Mains."
Hearing this, the wounded knight sent a sad farewell to his lady love, and took ship with Gouvernail his squire, and sailed to Brittany, where he was warmly welcomed by King Howell.