"Ha!" quoth Nicolete, "be the soul of thy father and the soul of thy
mother in the rest of Paradise, so fairly and so courteously hast thou
spoken me! Please God, I will be right ware of them, God keep me out of
their hands."

So she shrank under her mantle into the shadow of the pillar till they
had passed by, and then took she farewell of Aucassin, and so fared till
she came unto the castle wall. Now that wall was wasted and broken, and
some deal mended, so she clomb thereon till she came between wall and
fosse, and so looked down, and saw that the fosse was deep and steep,
whereat she was sore adread.

"Ah God," saith she, "sweet Saviour! If I let myself fall hence, I shall
break my neck, and if here I abide, to-morrow they will take me and burn
me in a fire. Yet liefer would I perish here than that to-morrow the
folk should stare on me for a gazing-stock."

Then she crossed herself, and so let herself slip into the fosse, and
when she had come to the bottom, her fair feet, and fair hands that had
not custom thereof, were bruised and frayed, and the blood springing from
a dozen places, yet felt she no pain nor hurt, by reason of the great
dread wherein she went. But if she were in cumber to win there, in worse
was she to win out. But she deemed that there to abide was of none
avail, and she found a pike sharpened, that they of the city had thrown
out to keep the hold. Therewith made she one stepping place after
another, till, with much travail, she climbed the wall. Now the forest
lay within two crossbow shots, and the forest was of thirty leagues this
way and that. Therein also were wild beasts, and beasts serpentine, and
she feared that if she entered there they would slay her. But anon she
deemed that if men found her there they would hale her back into the town