Then all beside himself with grief, he prayed first to Phoebus that
he would help him, and then to Phoebus' sister the moon. "Lady that
rulest the tides of the sea," he pleaded, "do now this favour for me.
When next thou art at the full, check thy course a little, and travel
no faster than thy brother, the sun. Then shalt thou stay ever at the
full and ever shall there be high tide on this coast. Thus do thou
for two years, and I can show my lady that not a rock is to be seen."
He was still praying madly in this wise when his brother came and
found him, and bore him to bed. Soon after this, Knight Averagus came
home covered with glory, to find his faithful wife Dorigen awaiting
him with joy.

For two years more Aurelius lay in torment on his bed of sickness.
His only comfort was his brother, who tended him as well as he could
and devised all manner of means to rid him of his pain. At last he
remembered how, when he was a student at Orleans, he one day saw a
fellow-student reading secretly a book of magic. This book spoke of
the eight-and-twenty mansions of the moon, and much other such folly
that we do not waste our time on nowadays, for Holy Church keeps us
clear of such delusions. When he remembered this his heart was filled
with joy, and he was sure that by some such means he would be able to
work his brother's cure. "Why," he thought, "conjurers can make all
manner of strange sights appear in a hall. They can bring in barges
and water and lions and make grape-vines spring up, and all this is
but seeming, there is no reality behind it. If at Orleans I found
some of my old companions, they might in the same way make all the
rocks appear to be gone, and then my brother could claim his lady."

Straightway he went to his brother and unfolded his plan. Up rose