Page:Studies on the legend of the Holy Grail.djvu/200

174 outshines the stars; and another damsel with a plate of fine gold. The procession passes from one into the other room. The hero refrains from asking who is served by the Grail. After playing at chess with the King they dine, and again the Grail passes, uncovered, at each dish. The hero would fain ask what was done with it, and is about to do so, but puts off the question. On the morrow he sees no one in the castle, the doors of the rooms he had been in the eve before are shut, no one answers; and, mounting his horse, which he finds ready saddled, he sets forth over the drawbridge, which closes of itself behind him, without learning why lance bleeds or whither the Grail is borne. (2) At the second visit the hero comes into a magnificent room, ornamented with fine gold and stars of silver, wherein on a vermeil couch the rich King is sitting. The hero is fain forthwith to ask about Grail and bleeding lance, but must sit him down by the rich King and tell of his adventures, about the chapel in which lay the dead Knight, and the black hand, the child in the tree and the tree full of candles. The King makes him eat before answering his questions. Whilst at meat a damsel, fairer than flowers in April, enters with the Holy Grail, another with the lance, a squire with the broken sword. The hero asks about these talismans. But first the King answers the questions about the earlier wonders; the talismans he will tell of after meat. The hero insists to know about the sword. The King bids him put it together—can he do so he will learn about the Knight in the Chapel, and after that about the talismans. Save for one flaw the hero succeeds, whereupon the King says he knows no one in the world better than he, embraces him, and yields him up all in his house. The squire who brought the sword returns, wraps it in a cendal, and carries it off.