The flames rose, and all were silent before the flames, and the King
waited.

The servants ran to the room where watch was kept on the two lovers;
and they dragged Tristan out by his hands though he wept for his
honour; but as they dragged him off in such a shame, the Queen still
called to him:

"Friend, if I die that you may live, that will be great joy."

Now, hear how full of pity is God and how He heard the lament and the
prayers of the common folk, that day.

For as Tristan and his guards went down from the town to where the
faggot burned, near the road upon a rock was a chantry, it stood at a
cliff's edge steep and sheer, and it turned to the sea-breeze; in the
apse of it were windows glazed. Then Tristan said to those with him:

"My lords, let me enter this chantry, to pray for a moment the mercy
of God whom I have offended; my death is near. There is but one door
to the place, my lords, and each of you has his sword drawn. So, you
may well see that, when my prayer to God is done, I must come past you
again: when I have prayed God, my lords, for the last time.

And one of the guards said: "Why, let him go in."

So they let him enter to pray. But he, once in, dashed through and
leapt the altar rail and the altar too and forced a window of the
apse, and leapt again over the cliff's edge. So might he die, but not
of that shameful death before the people.

Now learn, my lords, how generous was God to him that day. The wind
took Tristan's cloak and he fell upon a smooth rock at the cliff's
foot, which to this day the men of Cornwall call "Tristan's leap."

His guards still waited for him at the chantry door, but vainly, for
God was now his guard. And he ran, and the fine sand crunched under
his feet, and far off he saw the faggot burning, and the smoke and the
crackling flames; and fled.

Sword girt and bridle loose, Gorvenal had fled the city, lest the King
burn him in his master's place: and he found Tristan on the shore.

"Master," said Tristan, "God has saved me, but oh! master, to what
end? For without Iseult I may not and I will not live, and I rather
had died of my fall. They will burn her for me, then I too will die
for her."

"Lord," said Gorvenal, "take no counsel of anger. See here this
thicket with a ditch dug round about it. Let us hide therein where the
track passes near, and comers by it will tell us news; and, boy, if
they burn Iseult, I swear by God, the Son of Mary, never to sleep
un