o form a spindle. Next she
went to the green and the white trees, which had grown from the roots of
the other, and bade him cut as much from each of these. From this wood
were three spindles wrought, which she hung up at the head of the bed.

"You have done marvellously well," said Solomon, on seeing this.
"Wonderful things, I deem, shall come of all this, more than you
yourself dream of."

"Some of these things you shall soon know," she answered.

That night Solomon lay near the ship, and as he slept he dreamed. There
came from heaven, as it seemed to him, a great company of angels, who
alighted in the ship, and took water that was brought by an angel in a
vessel of silver, and sprinkled it everywhere. Then the angel came to
the sword and drew letters on the hilt, and on the ship's bow he wrote,
"You who shall enter this ship take heed of your belief," and further as
the knights had read. When Solomon had read these words he drew back,
and dared not enter, and there soon arose a wind which drove the ship
far to sea, so that it was quickly lost to sight. Then a low voice said,
"Solomon, the last knight of thy lineage shall rest in this bed." With
this Solomon waked, and lo! the ship was gone.

This was the story that the fair damsel, Percivale's sister, told to the
knights, as they stood curiously surveying the bed and the spindles.
Then one of them lifted a cloth that lay on the deck, and under it found
a purse, in which was a written paper, telling the same strange story
they had just heard.

"The sword is here," said Galahad; "but where shall be found the maiden
who is to make the new girdle?"

"You need not seek far," said Percivale's sister. "By God's leave, I
have been chosen to make that girdle, and have it here."

Then she opened a box which she had brought with her, and took from it a
girdle that was richly wrought with golden threads and studded with
precious stones, while its buckle was of polished gold.

"Lo, lords and knights," she said, "here is the destined girdle. The
greater part of it was made of my hair, which I loved dearly when I was
a woman of the world. When I knew that I was set aside for this high
purpose, I cut off my hair and wrought this girdle in God's name."

"Well have you done!" cried Bors. "Without you we would have learned
nothing of this high emprise."

Then the noble maiden removed the mean girdle from the sword, and put
upon it the rich one she had brought, which became it