On hearing this, Bors stood abashed. This, then, he thought, was the white bird of his dream. Her love he must return or lose Lancelot,--so fate had spoken.
As he stood deeply thinking, the lady came up and saluted him, taking his hand in hers, and bidding him sit beside her, while her deep eyes rested upon him with looks that made his soul tremble. Never had he gazed into such eyes before.
Then she spoke of many things, luring him into pleasant conversation, in which he forgot his fears, and began to take delight in her presence. At the end she told him how deeply and how long she had loved him, and begged him to return her love, saying that she could make him richer than ever was man of his age.
These words brought back all his trouble of soul. How to answer the lady he knew not, for his vow of chastity was too deep to be lightly broken.
"Alas!" she said, "must I plead for your love in vain?"
"Madam," said Bors, "I cannot think of earthly ties and delights while my brother lies dead, and awaits the rites of the Church."
"I have loved you long," she repeated, "both for your beauty of body and soul, and the high renown you have achieved. Now that chance has brought you to my home, think not ill of me if I let you not go without telling my love, and beseeching you to return it."
"That I cannot do," said Bors.
At these words she fell into the deepest sorrow, while tears flowed from her beautiful eyes.
"You will kill me by your coldness," she bewailed. Then she took him by the hand and bade him look upon her. "Am I not fair and lovely, and worthy the love of the best of knights? Alas! since you will not love me, you shall see me die of despair before your eyes."
"That I do not fear to see," he replied.
"You shall see it within this hour," she said, sadly.
Then she left him, and, taking with her twelve of her ladies, mounted to the highest battlement of the tower, while Bors was led to the court-yard below.
"Ah, Sir Bors, gentle knight, have pity on us!" cried one of the ladies.
"We shall all die if you are cruel to our lady, for she vows that she and all of us shall fall from this tower if you disdain her proffered love."
Bors looked up, and his heart melted with pity, to see so many fair faces looking beseechingly down upon him, while tears seemed to rain from their eyes. Yet he was steadfast of heart, for he felt that he could not lose his soul to save their lives, and his vow of chastity in the quest of the Sangreal was not to be broken for the delights of earthly love.
As he stood, some of the maidens flung themselves from the tower, and lay dead and bleeding at his feet, while above he saw the fair face of the lady looking down, as she stood balanced on the battlement, like a fair leaf that the next wind would sweep to certain death.
"God help me and guide me!" cried Bors in horror. "What shall I do? Here earthly endurance is too weak; I must put my trust in heaven." And he made the sign of the cross on his forehead and his breast.
Then came a marvel indeed. A roar was heard as if thunder had rent the sky, and a cry as if all the fiends of hell were about him. For the moment he closed his eyes, stunned by the uproar. When he opened them again all had gone,--the tower, the lady, the knights, and the chapel where he had placed his brother's body,--and he stood in the road, armed and mounted, while only a broad, empty plain spread before him.
Then he held up his hands to heaven and cried fervently: "Father and Creator, from what have I escaped! It is the foul fiend in the likeness of a beautiful woman who has tempted me. Only the sign of the holy cross has saved me from perdition."
Putting spurs to his horse he rode furiously away, burning with anxiety to get from that accursed place, and deeply glad at his escape. As he proceeded a loud clock-bell sounded to the right, and turning thither he came to a high wall, over which he saw the pinnacles of an abbey.
Here he asked shelter for the night, and was received with a warm welcome, for those within deemed he was one of the knights that sought the Sangreal. When morning came he heard mass, and then the abbot came and bade him good-morning. A conversation followed, in which he told the abbot all that had happened to him, and begged his interpretation thereof.
"Truly you are strong in the service of the Lord," said the abbot, "and are held for great deeds. Thus I interpret your adventures and visions.
The great fowl that fed its young with its own blood is an emblem of Christ, who shed his blood for the good of mankind. And the bare tree on which it sat signifies the world, which of itself is barren and without fruit. Also King Aniause betokens Jesus Christ, and the lady for whom you took the battle the new law of Holy Church; while the older lady is the emblem of the old law and the fiend, which forever war against the Church.
"By the black bird also was emblemed the Holy Church, which saith, 'I am black but he is fair.' The white bird represented the fiend, which, like hypocrisy, is white without and foul within. As for the rotten chair and the white lilies, the first was thy brother Lionel, who is a murderer and an untrue knight; while the lilies were the knight and the lady. The one drew near to the other to dishonor her, but you forced them to part. And you would have been in great peril had you, for the rescue of a rotten tree, suffered those two flowers to perish; for if they had sinned together they had both been damned.
"The seeming man of religion, who blamed you for leaving your brother to rescue a lady, was the foul fiend himself. Your brother was not slain, as he made it appear, but is still alive. For the corpse, and the chapel, and the tower were all devices of the evil one, and the lady who offered her love was the fiend himself in that showing. He knew you were tender-hearted, and he did all. Much you may thank God that you withstood his temptation, and that until now you have come through all your adventures pure and unblemished."
This gladdened the heart of the virtuous knight, and a warm hope of winning the Sangreal arose in his soul. Much more passed between them, and when Bors rode forth it was with the fervent blessing of the holy abbot.
On the morning of the second day Bors saw before him a castle that rose in a green valley, and met with a yeoman, whom he stopped and asked what was going on in that country.
"Sir knight," he answered, "there is to be held a great tournament before that castle."
"By what people?" asked Bors.
"The Earl of Plains," was the answer, "leads one party, and the nephew of the Lady of Hervin the other."
With this the yeoman rode on, and Bors kept on his course, thinking he might meet Lionel or some other of his old comrades at the tournament.
At length he turned aside to a hermitage that stood at the entrance to the forest. And to his surprise and joy he saw his brother Lionel sitting armed at the chapel door, waiting there to take part in the tournament the next morning.
Springing from his horse, Bors ran up gladly, crying, "Dear brother, happy is this meeting!"
"Come not near me!" cried Lionel, leaping to his feet in a burst of fury. "False recreant, you left me in peril of death to help a yelping woman, and by my knightly vow you shall pay dearly for it. Keep from me, traitor, and defend yourself. You or I shall die for this."
On seeing his brother in such wrath Bors kneeled beseechingly before him, holding up his hands, and praying for pardon and forgiveness.
"Never!" said Lionel. "I vow to God to punish you for your treachery.
You have lived long enough for a dog and traitor."
Then he strode wrathfully away, and came back soon, mounted and with spear in hand.
"Bors de Ganis," he cried, "defend yourself, for I hold you as a felon and traitor, and the untruest knight that ever came from so worthy a house as ours. Mount and fight. If you will not, I will run on you as you stand there on foot. The shame shall be mine and the harm yours; but of that shame I reck naught."
When Bors saw that he must fight with his brother or die he knew not what to do. Again he kneeled and begged forgiveness, in view of the love that ought to be between brothers.
But the fiend that sought his overthrow had put such fury into Lionel's heart that nothing could turn him from his wrathful purpose. And when he saw that Bors would not mount, he spurred his horse upon him and rode over him, hurting him so with his horse's hoofs that he swooned with the pain. Then Lionel sprang from his horse and rushed upon him sword in hand to strike off his head.
At this critical moment the hermit, who was a man of great age, came running out, and threw himself protectingly on the fallen knight.
"Gentle sir," he cried to Lionel, "have mercy on me and on thy brother, who is one of the worthiest knights in the world. If you slay him, you will lose your soul."
"Sir priest," said Lionel, sternly, "if you leave not I shall slay you, and him after you."
"Slay me if you will, but spare your brother, for my death would not do half so much harm as his."
"Have it, then, meddler, if you will!" cried Lionel, and he struck the hermit a blow with his sword that stretched him dead on the ground.
Then, with unquenched anger, he tore loose the lacings of his brother's helmet, and would have killed him on the spot but for a fortunate chance.
As it happened, Colgrevance, a fellow of the Round Table, rode up at that moment, and wondered when he saw the hermit dead, and Lionel about to slay his brother, whom he greatly loved.
Leaping hastily to the ground, he caught the furious knight by the shoulders and drew him strongly backward.
"What would you do?" he cried. "Madman, would you kill your brother, the worthiest knight of our brotherhood? And are you so lost to honor as to slay any knight thus lying insensible?"
"Will you hinder me?" asked Lionel, turning in rage. "Back, sirrah, or I shall slay you first and him afterwards."