Page:Aucassin and Nicolette (Bourdillon).pdf/38

34 Here they speak and tell the story.

was put in prison, as you have listened and heard, and Nicolette was elsewhere in the chamber. 'Twas the summer time, the month of May, when the days are warm and long and bright, and the nights still and cloudless. Nicolette lay one night in her bed, and saw the moon shine bright through a window, and heard the nightingale sing in the garden; and she remembered Aucassin her friend, whom she loved so well. Then she fell a-thinking of Warren Count of Beaucaire, and how he hated her to death; and she thought within herself that she would abide there no longer; since if she were betrayed and Count Warren knew of her, he would put her to an evil death. She perceived that the old woman who was with her slept. And she arose and clad her in a goodly gown that she had of cloth-of-silk; and she took bedclothes and towels, and tied one to other and made a rope as long as she could, and made it fast to the window-shaft; and so got down into the garden. Then she took her dress in one hand before, and in the other behind, and girded herself, because of the dew