distraught with the loss of his brother; let him be; and see, here comes
the noble stranger knight, our deliverer.' As he spoke, we heard a great
sound of trumpets, and therewithall a long line of knights on foot wound
up the hill towards the throne, and the queen rose up, and the people
shouted; and, at the end of all the procession went slowly and
majestically the stranger knight; a man of noble presence he was, calm,
and graceful to look on; grandly he went amid the gleaming of their
golden armour; himself clad in the rent mail and tattered surcoat he had
worn on the battle-day; bareheaded, too; for, in that fierce fight, in
the thickest of it, just where he rallied our men, one smote off his
helmet, and another, coming from behind, would have slain him, but that
my lance bit into his breast.

"So, when they had come within some twenty paces of the throne, the rest
halted, and he went up by himself toward the queen; and she, taking the
golden hilted sword in her left hand, with her right caught him by the
wrist, when he would have knelt to her, and held him so, tremblingly, and
cried out, 'No, no, thou noblest of all knights, kneel not to me; have we
not heard of thee even before thou camest hither? how many widows bless
thee, how many orphans pray for thee, how many happy ones that would be
widows and orphans but for thee, sing to their children, sing to their
sisters, of thy flashing sword, and the heart that guides it! And now, O
noble one! thou hast done the very noblest deed of all, for thou hast
kept grown men from weeping shameful tears! O truly, the greatest I can
do for thee is very little; yet, see this sword, golden-hilted, and the
stones flash out from it,' (then she hung it round him), 'and see this
wreath of lilies and roses for thy head; lilies no whiter than thy pure
heart, roses no tenderer than thy true love; and here, before all these
my subjects, I fold thee, noblest, in my arms, so, so.' Ay, truly it was
strange enough! those two were together again; not the queen and the