Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/322

 286 for his pains, and returns to court with an exaggerated account of the knight's bearing and language. Gawain is then dispatched on the same errand, and, overtaking the stranger, courteously invites his return, but is told that he rides on a quest that will brook no delay, and which none but he may achieve; nevertheless, he thinks it possible that Gawain, whose identity he has learned, might succeed. On his return he will gladly pay his respects to the queen.

Gawain, however, by soft words, persuades him to return, pledging his honour that he shall in no wise suffer by the delay. They turn back, but scarcely have they reached the tents when the knight, with a loud cry, falls forward, wounded to death by a javelin cast by an unseen hand. With his dying breath he bids Gawain don his armour, and mount his steed, which shall carry him to the destined goal. Gawain, furious at the slur cast on his honour by this breach of his safe-conduct, does as requested, and, leaving the dead body to the care of the queen, departs at once.

Through the night he rides, and all the next day, till he has passed the borders of Arthur's land, and at nightfall, wearied out, he finds himself in a waste land by the sea-shore. A causeway, bordered on either side by trees, their roots in the water, runs out from the land, and at the further end Gawain sees a light, as of a fire. The road is so dark, and the night so stormy, he would fain delay till morning, but the steed, taking the bit in its teeth, dashes down the pathway, and eventually he reaches the entrance to a lighted hall. Here he is at first received as one long-expected, but, having unhelmed, is seen to be a stranger, and left alone. In the centre of the hall stands a bier, on which lies a body, covered with a rich pall of crimson silk, a broken sword on the breast, and four censers at the four corners of the bier. A procession of clergy enters, headed