s I
know I may not live, do thou shrive me, good father, for I must needs
pass out of this world.'

Then she confessed her sins and was shriven. And anon she called her
father and her brother, Sir Tirre, and begged that they would do as she
desired as to her burial, and they promised.

In a little while she died, and a letter was put into her cold hand,
and she was placed in a fair bed, with all the richest clothes she had
about her. Then they carried her on the bed in a chariot, slowly, with
many prayers and with much weeping, to the Thames, and there they put
her and the bed in a barge.

Over all the bed and the barge, except her fair face, was placed a
cloak of black samite, and an old and faithful servant of the house
stepped into the barge to guide it.

They let it go from them with great grief, and the aged man steered it
down the river towards London, where was the court of Arthur.

It happened that, as the king and his queen were looking from a window
of the palace which looked upon the Thames, they saw the black barge,
and marvelled what it might mean.

The king made the barge to be held fast, and took the queen's hand, and
with many knights went down to the water's edge, and there they saw a
fair gentlewoman lying on a rich bed, and she lay as if she slept.

The king took the letter gently from the fair hand which held it, and
went into his court, and ordered all his knights to assemble, and then
opened the letter and read what was written. The words were these:

'Most noble knight, my lord Sir Lancelot du Lake, now hath death come
to me, seeing that you would not give me your love. Yet do thou do this
little thing I ask, now that I am dead, for I ask thee to pray for my
soul and to bury me, and think of me sometimes. Pray for my soul and
think of me, as thou art a knight peerless and most gentle.'

Sir Lancelot heard it word by word and went pale as ashes, so that men
marvelled to see his sorrow. When it was finished, he said:

'My lord, King Arthur, wit ye well that I am right heavy for the death
of this fair damsel. God knoweth that I was never causer of her death
by my will, as her brother Sir Lavaine here will avouch for me. She was
both fair and good, and exceeding kind to me when I was wounded; but
she loved me out of all measure, and of that I was sore heavy.'

'Ye might have loved her,' said the queen, weeping for sorrow at the
hapless fate of one so fair and fond.

'Madam,' said Sir Lan