'My lord,' answered Sir Bedivere, 'your commandment shall be done,'
and he departed. But when he looked at that noble sword, and beheld
the jewels and gold that covered the pommel and hilt, he said to
himself, 'If I throw this rich sword into the water no good will come
of it, but only harm and loss'; so he hid Excalibur under a tree, and
returned unto the King and told him his bidding was done. 'What did
you see there?' asked the King.
'Sir,' answered Sir Bedivere, 'I saw nothing but the winds and the
waves.'
'You have not dealt truly with me,' said the King. 'Go back, and do my
command; spare not, but throw it in.' But again Sir Bedivere's heart
failed him, and he hid the sword, and returned to tell the King he had
seen nothing but the wan water.
'Ah, traitor!' cried King Arthur, 'this is twice you have betrayed me.
If you do not now fulfil my bidding, with mine own hands will I slay
you, for you would gladly see me dead for the sake of my sword.' Then
Sir Bedivere was shamed at having disobeyed the King, and drew forth
the sword from its hiding place, and carried it to the water side, and
with a mighty swing threw it far into the water. And as it flew
through the air, an arm and hand lifted itself out of the water, and
caught the hilt, and brandished the sword thrice, and vanished with it
beneath the water. So Sir Bedivere came again unto the King, and told
him what he saw.
'Alas!' said the King, 'help me hence, for I have tarried overlong,'
and Sir Bedivere took him on his back, and bare him to the water side.
And when they stood by the bank, a little barge containing many fair
ladies and a Queen, all in black hoods, drew near, and they wept and
shrieked when they beheld King Arthur.
'Now put me into the barge,' said the King, and Sir Bedivere laid him
softly down, and the ladies made great mourning and the barge rowed
from the land.
'Ah, my lord Arthur!' cried Sir Bedivere, 'what shall become of me now
you go from me, and I am left here alone with my enemies?'
'Comfort yourself,' replied the King, 'and do as well as you may, for
I go unto the valley of Avilion, to be healed of my grievous wound.
And if you never more hear of me, pray for my soul.' But Sir Bedivere
watched the barge till it was beyond his sight, then he rode all night
till he came to a hermitage. Now when Queen Guenevere heard of the
battle, and how that King Arthur was slain and Sir Mordred and all
their Knights, she stole away, and five ladies with her, and rode to
Amesbury; and there she put on clothes of black and white, and became
a nun, and did great penance, and many alms deeds, and people
marvelled at her and at her godly life. And ever she wept and moaned
over the years that were past, and for King Arthur.
As soon as the messenger whom the King had sent with Sir Gawaine's
letter reached Sir Lancelot, and he learned that Sir Mordred had taken
for himself the crown of England, he rose up in wrath, and, calling
Sir Bors, bid him collect their host, that they should pass at once
over the sea to avenge themselves on that false Knight. A fair wind
blew them to Dover, and there Sir Lancelot asked tidings of King
Arthur. Then the people told him that the King was slain, and Sir
Mordred, and an hundred thousand men besides, and that the King had
buried Sir Gawaine in the chapel at Dover Castle. 'Fair Sirs,' said
Sir Lancelot, 'show me that tomb'; and they showed it to him, and Sir
Lancelot kneeled before it, and wept and prayed, and this he did for
two days. And on the third morning he summoned before him all the
great lords and leaders of his host, and said to them, 'Fair lords, I
thank you all for coming here with me, but we come too late, and that
will be bitter grief to me as long as I shall live. But since it is
so, I will myself ride and seek my lady Guenevere in the west country,
where they say she has gone, and tarry you here, I entreat you, for
fifteen days, and if I should not return take your ships and depart
into your own country.'
[Illustration: EXCALIBUR RETURNS TO THE MERE]
Sir Bors strove to reason with him that the quest was fruitless, and
that in the west country he would find few friends; but his words
availed nothing. For seven days Sir Lancelot rode, and at last he came
to a nunnery, where Queen Guenevere was looking out from her lattice,
and was ware of his presence as he walked in the cloister. And when
she saw him she swooned, and her ladies and gentlewomen tended her.
When she was recovered, she spoke to them and said, 'You will marvel,
fair ladies, why I should swoon. It was caused by the sight of yonder
Knight who stands there, and I pray you bring him to me.' As soon as
Sir Lancelot was brought she said to her ladies, 'Through me and this
man has this war been wrought, for which I repent me night and day.
Therefore, Sir Lancelot, I require and pray you never to see my face
again, but go back to your own land, and govern it and protect it; and
take to yourself a wife, and pray that my soul may be made clean of
its ill doing.'
'Nay, Madam,' answered Sir Lancelot, 'that shall I never do; but the
same life that you have taken upon you, will I take upon me likewise.'
'If you will do so,' said the Queen, 'it is well; but I may never
believe but that you will turn to the world again.'
'Well, Madam,' answered he, 'you speak as it pleases you, but you
never knew me false to my promise, and I will forsake the world as you
have done. For if in the quest of the Sangreal I had forsaken its
vanities with all my heart and will, I had passed all Knights in the
quest, except Sir Galahad my son. And therefore, lady, since you have
taken you to perfection, I must do so also, and if I may find a hermit
that will receive me I will pray and do penance while my life lasts.
Wherefore, Madam, I beseech you to kiss me once again.'
'No,' said the Queen, 'that I may not do,' and Sir Lancelot took his
horse and departed in great sorrow. All that day and the next night he
rode through the forest till he beheld a hermitage and a chapel
between two cliffs, and heard a little bell ring to Mass. And he that
sang Mass was the Bishop of Canterbury, and Sir Bedivere was with him.
After Mass Sir Bedivere told Sir Lancelot how King Arthur had thrown
away his sword and had sailed to the valley of Avilion, and Sir
Lancelot's heart almost burst for grief. Then he kneeled down and
besought the Bishop that he might be his brother. 'That I will,
gladly,' said the Bishop, and put a robe upon him.
After the fifteen days were ended, and still Sir Lancelot did not
return, Sir Bors made the great host go back across the sea, while he
and some of Sir Lancelot's kin set forth to seek all over England till
they found Sir Lancelot. They rode different ways, and by fortune Sir
Bors came one day to the chapel where Sir Lancelot was. And he prayed
that he might stay and be one of their fellowship, and in six months
six other Knights were joined to them, and their horses went where
they would, for the Knights spent their lives in fasting and prayer,
and kept no riches for themselves.
In this wise six years passed, and one night a vision came to Sir
Lancelot in his sleep charging him to hasten unto Amesbury. 'By the
time that thou come there,' said the vision, 'thou shalt find Queen
Guenevere dead; therefore take thy fellows with thee and fetch her
corpse, and bury it by the side of her husband, the noble King
Arthur.'
Then Sir Lancelot rose up and told the hermit, and the hermit ordered
him to make ready and to do all as the vision had commanded. And Sir
Lancelot and seven of the other Knights went on foot from Glastonbury
to Amesbury, and it took them two days to compass the distance, for
it was far and they were weak with fasting. When they reached the
nunnery Queen Guenevere had been dead but half an hour, and she had
first summoned her ladies to her, and told them that Sir Lancelot had
been a priest for near a twelvemonth. 'And hither he cometh as fast as
he may,' she said, 'to fetch my corpse, and beside my lord King Arthur
he shall bury me. And I beseech Almighty God that I may never have
power to see Sir Lancelot with my bodily eyes.' 'Thus,' said the
ladies, 'she prayed for two days till she was dead.' Then Sir Lancelot
looked upon her face and sighed, but wept little, and next day he sang
Mass. After that the Queen was laid on a bier drawn by horses, and an
hundred torches were carried round her, and Sir Lancelot and his
fellows walked behind her singing holy chants, and at times one would
come forward and throw incense on the dead. So they came to
Glastonbury, and the Bishop of Canterbury sang a Requiem Mass over the
Queen, and she was wrapped in cloth, and placed first in a web of
lead, and then in a coffin of marble, and when she was put into the
earth Sir Lancelot swooned away.
'You are to blame,' said the hermit, when he awaked from his swoon,
'you ought not make such manner of sorrow.'
'Truly,' answered Sir Lancelot, 'I trust I do not displease God, but
when I remember her beauty, and her nobleness, and that of the King,
and when I saw his corpse and her corpse lie together, my heart would
not bear up my body. And I remembered, too, that it was through me and
my pride that they both came to their end.'
From that day Sir Lancelot ate so little food that he dwined away, and
for the most part was found kneeling by the tomb of King Arthur and
Queen Guenevere. None could comfort him, and after six weeks he was
too weak to rise from his bed. Then he sent for the hermit and to his
fellows, and asked in a weary voice that they would give him the last
rites of the Church; and begged that when he was dead his body might
be taken to Joyous Gard, which some say is Alnwick and others
Bamborough. That night the hermit had a vision that he saw Sir
Lancelot being carried up to heaven by the angels, and he waked Sir
Bors and bade him go and see if anything ailed Sir Lancelot. So Sir
Bors went and Sir Lancelot lay on his bed, stark dead, and he smiled
as he lay there. Then was there great weeping and wringing of hands,
more than had been made for any man; but they placed him on the horse
bier that had carried Queen Guenevere, and lit a hundred torches, and
in fifteen days they reached Joyous Gard. There his body was laid in
the choir, with his face uncovered, and many prayers were said over
him. And there, in the midst of their praying, came Sir Ector de
Maris, who for seven years had sought Sir Lancelot through all the
land.
'Ah, Lancelot,' he said, when he stood looking beside his dead body,
'thou wert head of all Christian Knights. Thou wert the courtliest
Knight that ever drew sword, and the faithfulest friend that ever
bestrode a horse. Thou wert the goodliest Knight that ever man has
seen, and the truest lover that ever loved a woman.'