scabbard. The hilt of the sword was set with jewels and the scabbard
seemed to be of serpent's skin. It was all rich and beautiful except
the girdle which was fastened to it, and that was of hemp and looked
poor and weak. "Galahad," said Percivale's sister, "this sword is for
you, and I must tell you how long it has been waiting for you. It was
King David's sword, and his son, King Solomon, built this ship and put
this sword in it and said that it should be for the best knight of the
world and for no other. King Solomon was the wisest man that ever lived,
yet he had a wife who in one thing was wiser than he. For she was to
make a girdle for this sword, and she made this poor one of hemp that
you see. When the King saw it he was angry and he told her that such a
sword as this ought to have the best girdle in the world, not the worst.
'That is true, my lord,' she answered, 'but I had nothing that was fit
for the best girdle in the world, and so I have made this one. And this
one shall stay on the sword till it is time for the best knight of the
world to come and take it. Then the sword shall have a new girdle. It
shall be made by another woman, a young maiden, and she shall make it of
what she loves best and is proudest of in all the world.' And when
Solomon had built the ship and put the sword in it, and his wife had put
the girdle of hemp on the sword, they saw the ship, all of itself, move
out to sea, and it passed out of their sight and they never heard of it
again. And ever since King Solomon's time this ship has floated on the
sea, and now I have brought you to it, Galahad, to take this sword which
is yours."
"This is a wonderful story that you have told us," Galahad said. "How
have you learned these things?"
"I cannot tell you," she said. "It seems to me that I know them without
learning them. It is the Holy Grail, I think, that has given me the
knowledge of them, but I cannot tell you how; only, when I have seen the
Holy Grail, I have thought that all at once I knew many wonderful things
that I did not know before."
"The Holy Grail?" said Galahad. "You have seen it then?"
"Yes," she answered, "many times. You knights go far to seek the Holy
Grail, but it has come to me without my seeking it. Now, Galahad, take
your sword, for soon we must leave this ship."
"But where is the new girdle for the sword?" said Galahad. "It seems to
me that this old one of hemp will scarcely hold it. And who is the
maiden who is to make the new girdle?"
"I am she," said Percivale's sister, "and I have made the girdle and
have brought it. It is made of my own hair. It was long and beautiful
once, like fine threads of gold, and I was proud of it and loved it more
than anything else in the world. But when I had seen the Holy Grail and
when I knew of this sword and knew that it was I who must make the new
girdle for it, then I cut off my hair and wove it into a girdle."
[Illustration: "I CUT OFF MY HAIR AND WOVE IT INTO A GIRDLE."]
Then she took the girdle out of a casket that she had brought, and it
was indeed like a broad band of soft gold. And she fastened it upon the
sword and bound the sword upon Galahad's side.
They saw that the ship was coming near the land again and soon it
touched the shore. They all went on shore, and, when they had gone a
little way they saw a great castle before them. When the three knights
and Percivale's sister came near the castle, men came out of it and told
them that they could not pass till they had done the custom of the
castle. And the custom of the castle was that the maiden must give a
silver dish full of her blood to cure a sick lady. The three knights
would have fought the men of the castle and tried to pass by force, but
Percivale's sister would not let them do it. "The lady of the castle
shall have my blood," she said, "and it will cure her."
"But if you lose so much blood," said Galahad, "you may die yourself."
"Yes," she answered, "I shall die, but it is no matter for that. All
that I had to live for was to give you the sword that you have, to make
the girdle for it of my hair, and to cure this lady. When I have done
that I shall have done all that I had to do. Now let me tell you what
to do when I am dead. When I am dead, do not bury me here, but put me
in the ship that we have come in. Leave me in it alone and go on your
way. You will see me again sooner than you think, but there is
something still for you to do here. You must go to the Castle of
Carbonek to heal King Pelles's wound. After that you three must bring
the Holy Grail to the City of Sarras. I shall be there as soon as you
and there you must bury me. And two of you will not live long after
that, and you will be buried beside me. For you, Galahad, and you, my
brother Percivale, will stay there with me, and then you, Bors, must
come back to England and tell the King and the rest all that we have
seen and done. Now let us talk of it no more. The Holy Grail has shown
me all that I must do and neither you nor I must try to change it."
All this, you may be sure, made the three knights very sad, but
Percivale's sister had shown them and had told them so much that was
wonderful that they did not dare to disobey her. They all stayed in the
castle that night. In the morning Percivale's sister gave the silver
dish full of her blood and it cured the lady of the castle, and soon
after that Percivale's sister died.
The three knights carried her to the shore and put her into the ship
again, as she had told them to do. As soon as they were on the shore
again, the ship started out to sea and they stood and watched it. It
went away from them swiftly and they looked till its canopies of white
silk seemed no more than the wings of a sea-bird resting on the water,
and then, with a last fading flash in the morning sunlight on the edge
of the ocean and the sky, it was gone. Yet still they watched and they
saw a little brown spot of mist rise up where the ship had vanished. It
grew larger and came toward them and spread over the sky and shut off
the water from their eyes and it wrapped them all around. They could
scarcely see the path before them as they turned to go away. The cold,
damp, sad mist cloud was over all the land and the ocean, only before
them there was a pale, silvery shimmer of the sun still shining on the
cloud.
[Illustration: The Dove with the golden censer]
*CHAPTER XV*
*THE CITY OF SARRAS*
The knights went to the castle and found horses, and mounted and rode
toward the Castle of Carbonek. The silvery shimmer of the sun upon the
mist grew brighter. The mist itself grew thinner and lighter and at
last it all melted away into the clear air, and the sun shone warmly
upon the fields and the woods, which the morning mist had left cool and
fresh and dewy. The knights did not speak much to one another. They
were thinking too much of what had passed. And so they rode till late
in the day, and then they saw the Castle of Carbonek before them.
Everything there was as if they had been expected. The porters opened
the gate for them, King Pelles's men led them to chambers, where they
took off their armor, and then to the great hall, and there they found
places ready for them at the table and the table laid, though with no
food upon it. When they had sat down, King Pelles was brought in and
was placed at the table, too. "Galahad," he said, "no one could be more
glad to see you than I am, for I know that you have come to cure my
wound. I have suffered with it every day for all these many years; yes,
since long before you were born. And all that time I have known that no
one could cure it but you, and so I have waited and waited for you to
grow up and be a knight and go out in the quest of the Holy Grail, for I
knew that it was not till then that you could come to cure me. I have
tried to be patient all these years, but now, Galahad, that you have
come, it seems to me that I could not bear this wound another day."
When the King had said this, the dove that carried the little golden
censer in its peak flew into the hall, as it had done when Bors was
there before, long ago. The thin smoke floated through the room and it
was filled again with that sweet odor that Bors remembered. Then a door
of the hall opened and an old man--the same whom Bors had seen before,
the same who had brought Galahad to the Siege Perilous--came in. He
carried the Holy Grail itself, and this time there was no covering of
silk upon it. It was not the old rosy glow that came from the cup now.
The blood that was in it shone like one clear, red gem, resting in the
pure crystal of the cup. It shone brighter, the knights thought, than
any light they had ever seen before, yet it did not hurt their eyes when
they looked at it. The beams that came from it made a broad halo of
beautiful colors all about it, and the light that it shed through the
room was like the light of day, only brighter and clearer, and
everything that was seen in it looked finer and more beautiful.
The old man held the Holy Grail high up above his head for them to see
it better, and then he put it on the little table of gold and silver
that was in the room. Another door of the hall was opened and four boys
came in and brought the spear with the drops of blood flowing from the
point. They came and stood with it before the old man and he looked at
the spear and then he looked at Galahad. Galahad rose from the table
and went to the spear and touched the blood on the point of it with his
fingers. Then he went to the King and touched the wound in his side
with the blood, and at once the wound was healed. The King stood up for
a moment and felt that his strength and his health had come back to him,
and then he sank down again in his place and scarcely moved, but gazed
at the Holy Grail and at the spear and at Galahad.
"Galahad," said the old man, "you have done now all that you had to do
here. You have seen the Holy Grail and you have healed the King's
wound. To-morrow you must leave this land, and the Holy Grail will
leave it too. Go to-morrow, with your two fellows, to the sea. There
you will find your ship. You must go in it to the City of Sarras and
you must take the Holy Grail with you. When you are there, you will
know what more you have to do."
The old man lifted the Holy Grail again and went out of the hall with
it, and the boys who carried the spear followed him. The table was
covered with food and wine now and they all ate and drank, and then they
all left the hall and slept till morning.
In the morning Galahad and Percivale and Bors left the Castle of
Carbonek and went to the shore. And there, as the old man had said,
they found a ship. As soon as they were on board they saw that the Holy
Grail was there before them. It stood on the table of gold and silver
and the covering of white silk was over it again.
The knights did not know how long they were in that magic ship, or what
way or how far they went. They were moving swiftly always, they slept
and they awoke, and they saw sunlight and moonlight and starlight. The
Holy Grail was always with them and they never felt hunger or cold or
weariness. And while they were in the ship Galahad told Percivale and
Bors that he had prayed that he might leave this world whenever he
wished it, and he knew that his prayer would be answered. And one
morning, just as the sun was rising, they saw a low bank of white mist
far before them, and above the mist they could see the pale, silvery
lines of spires and towers and domes, and they knew that this was the
City of Sarras. The ship brought them quickly nearer and nearer, and as
they came into the harbor they saw another ship going in before them. It
was all covered with white, and they knew that it was the ship that
carried Percivale's sister.
When they came to the shore they took hold of the table with the Holy
Grail upon it to carry it out of the ship. But it was too heavy for
them and they looked about to find some one to help them. The nearest
man was an old cripple who sat begging. Galahad called to him and told
him to come and help them carry the table. "I cannot help you," he
said; "it is many years since I could even stand, except with crutches."
"No matter for that," said Galahad, "come and do your best." And the
old cripple came and helped them, and he was as strong and as well as
any man. They carried the table and the Holy Grail to the cathedral and
left them before the altar, and then they came back to the shore and
brought Percivale's sister out of the ship and up to the cathedral too,
and buried her there.
When the King of Sarras heard of the strange knights who had come and of
the cripple who had been healed, he sent for the knights and asked them
who they were and whence they came. Now this King was a tyrant, and
when Galahad had told him all about the Holy Grail he began to be afraid
of these knights, for he feared that they would have more power over the
people than he had himself. So he sent all three of them to prison.
But as soon as they were in prison the Holy Grail came to them of
itself, and it stayed with them and fed them, as it had fed Joseph of
Arimathaea, when he was in prison. And, like him, they scarcely knew
how long they were there. But when they had been in prison for a year
the King was sick and felt that he was going to die, and then he began
to have worse fears than before.
So he sent for the three knights again and told them that he had done
wrong in putting them in prison and begged them to forgive him. "We
forgive you," Galahad answered; "you had no power to harm us, for the
Holy Grail was always with us."
Then the King said to Galahad: "I am sure that I shall die soon and I
wish that you might be King here after me, for I know that my people
could have no better king than you."
So it was agreed, and soon after that the King died and Galahad was
crowned in his place. When Galahad was King the Holy Grail was put
before the altar in the cathedral again and Galahad had a chest made to
cover it. And every day he and Percivale and Bors went to the cathedral
to pray before it.
And one day, when Galahad had been King of Sarras for a year, he told
Percivale and Bors that the time had come for him to leave this world,
and they must come with him to the cathedral now for the last time. So
they went to the cathedral together and they saw an old man kneeling at
the altar. He was the same old man whom they had seen so many times
before, who had been made to live so far beyond his time by the power of
the Holy Grail, Joseph of Arimathaea. On the altar before him lay the
spear with the drops of blood flowing from its point.
The three knights knelt before the altar, Galahad nearer to it than the
others, and they were there for a long time. Then the old man rose and
came to the chest where the Grail was and took it out and held it up
before them, and the light that shone from the blood that was in it,
through the crystal of the cup, was greater and stronger than ever. The
whole cathedral was bright with it. It streamed up among the arches of
the roof and lighted old pictures that were painted there. For years
before they had scarcely been seen, they were so dim with time and with
dust and with the smoke of incense. Now, with the light of the Holy
Grail upon it, the place was again a piece of Heaven, filled with
wonderful forms. There was Elijah, in his chariot of fire; there were
saints and angels; and all about them and among them there were little
stars of gold, that glowed and twinkled in the new brightness like the
stars of the real Heaven.
The old man set the Grail upon the altar and came to Galahad and touched
his hand and kissed him. Then all at once the church grew dark and
Percivale and Bors could see nothing but the Grail and the spear upon
the altar and the old man who stood before it. He took the Grail and
the spear and then he seemed to rise and to go farther from them, though
they could not see how he went. It seemed to them, too, that Galahad
was with him, and they did not see that the form of Galahad still lay
before them on the steps of the altar.
In this way they watched for a long time and then Percivale said to
Bors: "Do you not see, far off there in the sky, as it seems, Galahad
himself, with his crown and his royal robes, holding the Holy Grail in
his hands?"
"I cannot see that," Bors answered; "the window of the choir is open,
but the air outside is growing darker. I see a little cloud that the
setting sun has turned all to crimson and to gold, and that is all."
After a time Percivale said again: "Bors, do you not see now? He is
farther away, but still I can see the shining of the Holy Grail."
And Bors answered: "Even the little cloud is gone now, and where it was
a bright star is shining. I can see no more."
And again Percivale said: "I hear music--trumpets and harps and
voices--and I see Galahad still, and plainer than I saw him before,
holding up the Holy Grail. Do you hear nothing, Bors, and see nothing?"
"I heard a loud wind," Bors answered. "It passed us and blew against
the window of the choir and shut it. I cannot see the sky any more, but
in the colored glass of the window I see Joseph of Arimathaea, holding
up the Holy Grail, but I cannot see him clearly, it is growing so dark
outside."
And still, though they did not see it then, the form of Galahad lay
before them on the steps of the altar. And again there was no King of
Sarras. They buried him, Percivale and Bors, in the cathedral, beside
Percivale's sister. And after that Percivale found a cell outside the
city and lived there as a hermit for a time, and then he died. Bors
stayed with him till then, and he buried him in the cathedral, with his
sister and Galahad. And when he had done that Bors left the City of
Sarras and went on his way back toward England, to tell King Arthur the
last of the story of the Holy Grail.
[Illustration: The Cheesewring]
*CHAPTER XVI*
*STORIES OF STRANGE STONES*
What I wanted to find was Dozmare Pool. I had heard about it and I had
read about it, and I wanted to see it. I studied the maps and the
time-tables. We had to go from Penzance to Exeter, and I thought that
if we got off the train at Liskeard we could find a carriage to take us
to Dozmare Pool and back in time to catch another train and get to
Exeter before night. Then it turned out that Helen's mother did not
care about going to Dozmare Pool at all.
You may never have noticed it, but one of the best ways in the world for
two people to get along together is for each of them to have his own way
always. So it took us less than a minute to settle that Helen's mother
should just stay in the train till it got to Exeter and wait there for
us. Helen was young enough to feel an ambition to see and do as much as
possible, instead of as little as possible, and she said that she would
go to see Dozmare Pool too. And so Helen and I got off the train at
Liskeard and stood on the platform and saw it go on and watched it till
it was out of sight. Then we felt that we were alone in a strange land,
for we knew almost as little about Liskeard as we did about the moon,
and how could we tell that we should be able to get to Dozmare Pool at
all? We left the station and began to look around. We did not have to
look far. Just across the road there was a little hotel called the Stag.
We went in and the landlord did not seem quite so surprised to see us as
some of the hotel keepers we had met before. We asked him if we could
have luncheon and he said we could. Then we asked him if he knew where
Dozmare Pool was. That made him stare a little, but he said he did.
Next we asked him if he could find a carriage and a driver to take us
there. "Yes," he said, "and I suppose you will want to go to the
Cheesewring too."
"What is the Cheesewring?"
"It's some very curious stones, sir; visitors almost always go to see
it, sir."
"Is it near Dozmare Pool?"
"Oh, it's a matter of three miles, sir."
"Shall we have time to go to both places and get back so as to catch a
train for Exeter?"
"Oh, yes, sir; you'll have plenty of time, I think."
"Very well, then, we will go to the Cheesewring."
That is the way with hotel keepers in such places. They have certain
sights that they expect everybody to go to see, but they never can
understand why you want to see anything else. And of course it doesn't
really matter whether they understand or not. Still I was willing to
take the landlord's advice. I had read something about the Cheesewring
before and I was glad to find that we had such a good chance to see it.
When we had finished luncheon the carriage and the driver were ready,
and in a few minutes Liskeard was behind us. The country was of the
same pretty sort that we had seen so many times before, with tall trees,
that hung over the road, and fields and high hedges. They were not
wonderful scenes that we were riding through, but just fresh and bright
and lovely scenes.
There was a place where, for a short way, we rode along beside a little
brook, and even from the carriage, as we passed, we could see the trout
swimming in it. The driver told us that the boys of a school near-by
often caught the trout by letting down wide-mouthed bottles, with bait
in them, into the water. The fish would go into the bottles and the
boys would pull them up by the strings. This was a way of catching
trout that I had never heard of, but it seemed likely enough that it
might be done, with a stream so full of them as this one was.
I tried, as usual, to get the driver to tell us stories. "What sort of
place is this Dozmare Pool, where we are going?" I said. "I have heard
that there are some very wonderful stories about it."
"I can't say, sir," he answered; "I never heard any stories about it in
particular."
This was just the answer that I expected. It is not at all easy to get
people to tell you the stories about the places where they live, even
when they know them. I don't know why it is. Perhaps they are afraid
of being laughed at, if the stories happen to be a little hard to
believe, and perhaps they feel that the stories belong to them and to
their neighbors, and they do not like to give them to strangers.
But one of the best ways to get them to tell you a story is to tell them
one. I thought that this way was worth trying, so I said: "I am
surprised at that. I thought everybody about here must know stories
about Dozmare Pool. Why, I was reading only the other day about a giant
named Tregagle, who lived about the pool and had a great deal of
trouble. He was once a wicked steward, I think, who killed his master
and mistress and got the property that belonged to their child, and for
that he was condemned to empty Dozmare Pool with a limpet shell. Of
course he never could do it, but he had to keep working at it forever.
And then, as if that was not enough, the story said that sometimes the
devil used to come after him, and the only way that he could get away
from the devil was to run fifteen miles to the Roche Rocks and put his
head in at the window of a chapel there, and then the devil could not
harm him. And when the devil got tired of waiting and went away, poor
old Tregagle had to come back and go to work again at emptying the pool
with his limpet shell."
"I never heard of Tregagle," said the driver, "but the way I heard the
story was that it was the devil himself who had to empty the pool with a
limpet shell, and he did it. Then he was condemned to bind the sand and
mike the binds of the sime, and that he couldn't do."
So the driver did know a story after all. I must tell you just here
that this driver had a very queer way of speaking, as it seemed to us.
I am not quite sure whether it was a Cornish way or not. It was harder
to understand than any other speech that we had heard in Cornwall.
Liskeard is almost on the edge of Devonshire and this man's talk, too,
had something that sounded like London in it. I try to tell you the
things that he said in every-day English, and not just the way he said
them. But I have tried, too, to give you a few words just as they
sounded, to show you what they were like. But I feel that I have not
quite done it. When the driver told us that the devil was condemned to
"bind the sand and mike the binds of the sime," Helen and I stared at
each other and could not make out what he meant at first. But we soon
thought it out. The words that he had tried to say were "bind the sand
and make the binds of the same," and what he meant was, that the devil
was to make the sand into bundles and make ropes out of the sand to bind
them around. Making ropes out of sand has always been counted a hard
thing to do, and it is really no wonder that the devil could not do it.