Palamides and his brother, finding themselves in this desperate strait, set themselves back to back in the midst of their assailants, and fought like very giants, keeping their ground for two hours, though they were attacked by twenty knights and forty gentlemen and yeomen. But strength cannot hold out forever against odds, and at the end they were forced to yield, and were locked up in a strong prison.
Within three days thereafter a court of twelve knights sat upon the charge against them, and found Sir Palamides guilty of their lord's death.
Sir Safere, who was adjudged not guilty, was given his liberty, and bidden to depart from the castle. He parted with his brother in the deepest woe.
"Dear brother, grieve not so greatly," said Palamides. "If die I must, I shall meet death bravely. But had I dreamed of such a doom as this, they should never have taken me alive."
[Illustration: Copyright 1895 by E. A. Abbey; from a Copely print copyright 1896 by Curtis and Cameron.
Then Safere departed in untold sorrow, though not without hope of rescue if he could raise a force to storm the castle. This he had no chance to do, for on the next morning Palamides was sent under an escort of twelve knights to the father of the dead knight, who dwelt in a strong castle by the sea-side, named Pelownes, where it had been decided that the sentence should be put into execution.
Palamides was placed on a sorry old steed with his feet bound beneath it, and, surrounded by the guard of twelve armed knights, was taken towards the place of death.
But through the favor of fortune their route lay by the castle of Joyous Gard, and here they were seen by one who knew Palamides, and who asked him whither he was borne.
"To my death," he answered, "for the slaying of a knight at the tournament. Had I not left Sir Tristram this would not have happened to me. I pray you, recommended me to your lord and to my lady Isolde, and beg them to forgive me my trespasses against them. And also to my lord King Arthur, and to all my fellows of the Round Table."
When the yeoman heard this he rode in all haste to Joyous Gard, where he told Tristram of what he had seen and heard.
"To his death, you say?" cried Tristram. "And for an accident of the tournament? Why, I and twenty others might be served in the same manner. I have reason to be angry with Palamides, but he shall not die the death of a dog if I can rescue him."