reatly wondering what those voices were, I made my way privily to
that place where I heard them speaking. There I beheld a half-armed
knight who lay upon the ground all bathed in his own blood, and another
knight, armed at all points, stood beside this knight, and the hands of
the second knight were all red with blood. So methought that the armed
knight had haply slain his fellow there in the woodlands in foul wise,
for so it appeared to be. So whilst I stood there I heard that knight
who lay on the ground complaining very grievously that he was hurt nigh
to death, and I heard him entreat that knight who was armed that he
should bear him to the westward and so by a forest path to the cabin of
a certain hermit that dwelleth in those parts. Therewith I went away
from that place as privily as I had come thither, for methought that
maybe some ill deed had been done at that place and that so I should be
punished if I meddled in it; wherefore I went away and left those two
knights in that wise."

Then the Lady Elaine the Fair asked that woodman if one of those horses
was white and the other piebald and he said: "Yea, as white as milk and
piebald with white and black." And the Lady said, "Then that must be
they."

[Sidenote: _The Lady Elaine cometh to the forest chapel._]

So that same day she and her company made them ready and they rode away
from Astolat and so came into the forest toward the westward. And after
a while they came to a path that went across the way and they took that
path to the right hand. So they travelled that path for a great while,
and by and by they beheld before them the hut of the hermit where it was
all built up against a great rock of the forest and overshadowed by the
thick foliage of the aged oak tree that grew above it. Then as they
drew near they heard the neighing of horses and they wist that they must
be the horses of Sir Launcelot and of Sir Lavaine.

Then, as the horses neighed in that wise, and as the horses of the Lady
Elaine's party answered their neighing, there came one and opened the
door of the hut and stood gazing at the Lady Elaine and her party as
they drew near, shading his eyes from the slanting sun. And the Lady
Elaine beheld who it was who stood there and she knew that it was Sir
Lavaine, wherefore she cried out in a loud and piercing voice, "My
brother! My brother!" Then Sir Lavaine, when he heard her, cried out
upon his part as in great amazement, "My sister, is it thou?"