id. "I ... I know ye not."

Mallory swung his shield around so that she could see the red cross.
"Now do you know me?"

She gasped, and her eyes grew even rounder. "Sir ... Sir Galahad! Oh,
fair knight, wherefore did ye not say?"

Mallory ignored the question. "The Sangraal," he repeated. "Where is
it?"

Her tears had ceased temporarily; now they began again. "Oh, fair
sir!" she cried, "ye see tofore you, a damosel at mischief, the which
was given guardianship of the Holy Vessel at her own request, and
bewrayed her trust, a damosel--"

"Never mind all that," Mallory said. "Where's the Sangraal?"

"I wot not, fair sir."

"But you must know if you were guarding it!"

"I wot not whither it was taken."

"But you must wot who took it."

"Wot I well, fair knight. Sir Launcelot, the which is thy father, bare
it from the chamber."

Mallory was stunned. "But that's impossible! My fa--Sir Launcelot
wouldn't steal the Sangraal!"

"Well I wot, fair sir; yet steal it he did. Came he unto the chamber
and saith, I hight Sir Launcelot du Lake of the Table Round, whereat I
did see his armor to be none other; so then took he the Vessel
covered with the red samite and bare it with him from the chamber,
whereat I--"

"How long ago?"

"But a little while afore eight of the clock. Sithen I have wept. I
know now no good knight, nor no good man. And I know from thy holy
shield and from they good name that thou art a good knight, and I
beseech ye therefore to help me, for ye be a shining knight indeed,
wherefore ye ought not to fail no damosel which is in distress, and
she besought you of help."

Mallory only half heard her. Sir Launcelot was too much with him. It
was inconceivable that a knight of such noble principles would even
consider touching the Sangraal, to say nothing of making off with it.
Maybe, though, his principles hadn't been quite as noble as they had
been made out to be. He had been Queen Guinevere's paramour, hadn't
he? He had lain with the fair Elaine, hadn't he? When you came right
down to it, he could very well have been a scoundrel at heart all
along--a scoundrel whose true nature had been toned down by writers
like Malory and poets like Tennyson. All of which, while it strongly
suggested that he was capable of stealing the Sangraal, threw not the
slightest light on his reason for having done so. Mallory was right
back where he had started from.

He turned to the girl. "You said something about needi