on a straw
pallet in a strange room, and he leaped up and went to a narrow
arrow-slit in the wall and looked out. Before him for a great distance
was a black watery land, with the sun sinking far away on the very
edge, and the pools of the marsh were as if they were of blood.

Then he beat at the door and called, but none responded, and for wrath
he could have dashed the door down, but it was too stout, and he had no
weapon; for his arms had been taken from him.

When it was dark, suddenly it seemed to Sir Lancelot that the room
smelled foul, as if he had been carried into the midst of the quaking
marsh, and was sunk deep in the slime and weeds of a pool. Then,
through the arrow-slit, he saw many strange lights come, dim and blue
like the wild lights that dance and flit over the lonely marshes by
night; but that which made him marvel was that these lights were two
together, as if they were the eyes of evil things. And they came up to
him with a breath that was cold and dank, and they seemed to peer into
his face, but he could see naught of their bodies. The hair upon his
head rose, and his skin went cold. They pressed all about him, and to
defend himself he struck at the eyes, but his blows beat only the air.
Then suddenly Sir Lancelot felt sharp pains, as if small keen knives
had been thrust into his flesh at many places. The stabs increased in
number and in pain, and Sir Lancelot beat about himself and ran to and
fro in the narrow chamber to escape the evil eyes and the stabs, but it
was in vain, and thus all night in much misery he suffered. When for
sheer weariness he lay down and tried to close his eyes, the evil
things would not let him, but ever they tore at him and stabbed him. He
was in anguish of mind more than he could bear, and for all his thought
he could not think of any way to fight against the evil powers which
followed and tortured him wherever he ran.

But at dawn they fled, and then the door of the room opened, and a
damsel appeared, and in her hands was a manchet of sour bread, and a
beaker of water from the ditch of the moat. The damsel was evilly clad
in rags, and seemed like a scullion-maid.

'These,' she said, 'my mistresses bid me say shall be your food until
you die.'

'Damsel,' said Lancelot, 'tell me who hath brought me here and used me
so evilly.'

'It is Queen Morgan le Fay,' said the damsel, 'and the three witch
queens, the Queen of Northgales, the Queen of the Out-Isles, and the
L