t day no one dared
enter the wild wood, for terror guarded it and the lovers were lords
of it all: and then it was that Tristan fashioned his bow "Failnaught"
which struck home always, man or beast, whatever it aimed at.

My lords, upon a summer day, when mowing is, a little after
Whitsuntide, as the birds sang dawn Tristan left his hut and girt his
sword on him, and took his bow "Failnaught" and went off to hunt in
the wood; but before evening, great evil was to fall on him, for no
lovers ever loved so much or paid their love so dear.

When Tristan came back, broken by the heat, the Queen said

"Friend, where have you been?"

"Hunting a hart," he said, "that wearied me. I would lie down and
sleep."

So she lay down, and he, and between them Tristan put his naked sword,
and on the Queen's finger was that ring of gold with emeralds set
therein, which Mark had given her on her bridal day; but her hand was
so wasted that the ring hardly held. And no wind blew, and no leaves
stirred, but through a crevice in the branches a sunbeam fell upon the
face of Iseult and it shone white like ice. Now a woodman found in the
wood a place where the leaves were crushed, where the lovers had
halted and slept, and he followed their track and found the hut, and
saw them sleeping and fled off, fearing the terrible awakening of that
lord. He fled to Tintagel, and going up the stairs of the palace,
found the King as he held his pleas in hall amid the vassals
assembled.

"Friend," said the King, "what came you hither to seek in haste and
breathless, like a huntsman that has followed the dogs afoot? Have you
some wrong to right, or has any man driven you?"

But the woodman took him aside and said low down:

"I have seen the Queen and Tristan, and I feared and fled."

"Where saw you them?"

"In a hut in Morois, they slept side by side. Come swiftly and take
your vengeance."

"Go," said the King, "and await me at the forest edge where the red
cross stands, and tell no man what you have seen. You shall have gold
and silver at your will."

The King had saddled his horse and girt his sword and left the city
alone, and as he rode alone he minded him of the night when he had
seen Tristan under the great pine-tree, and Iseult with her clear
face, and he thought:

"If I find them I will avenge this awful wrong."

At the foot of the red cross he came to the woodman and said:

"Go first, and lead me straight and quickly."

The dark s