would die, but Lancelot, seeing
that the knight's castle was so nigh, hastened to resume his armor, for
he knew not what other treachery might await him. Then, leaving the lady
still in a swoon, he mounted and rode away, thanking God that he had
come so well through that deadly peril.

As to Lancelot's other adventures at that time, they were of no great
moment. The chronicles tell that he saw a knight chasing a lady with
intent to kill her, and that he rescued her. Afterwards the knight, who
was her husband and mad with jealousy, struck off her head in Lancelot's
presence.

Then when Lancelot would have slain him, he grovelled in the dirt and
begged for mercy so piteously, that the knight at length granted him his
shameful life, but made him swear that he would bear the dead body on
his back to Queen Guenever, and tell her of his deed.

This he accomplished, and was ordered by the queen, as a fitting
penance, to bear the body of his wife to the Pope of Rome and there beg
absolution, and never to sleep at night but with the dead body in the
bed with him. All this the knight did, and the body was buried in Rome
by the Pope's command. Afterwards Pedivere, the knight, repented so
deeply of his vile deed that he became a hermit, and was known as a man
of holy life.

Two days before the feast of Pentecost, Lancelot returned to Camelot
from his long journey and his many adventures. And there was much
laughter in the court when the knights whom he had smitten down saw him
in Kay's armor, and knew who their antagonist had been.

"By my faith," said Kay, "I never rode in such peace as I have done in
Lancelot's armor, for I have not found a man willing to fight with me,
and have ruled lord of the land."

Then the various knights whom Lancelot had bidden to seek the court came
in, one by one, and all were glad to learn that it was by no common man
that they had been overcome. Among them came Sir Belleus, whom Lancelot
had wounded at the pavilion, and who at his request was made a Knight of
the Round Table, and Sir Meliot de Logres, whom he had rescued from the
enchantment of the Chapel Perilous. Also the adventure of the four
queens was told, and how Lancelot had been delivered from the power of
the sorceresses, and had won the tournament for King Bagdemagus.

And so at that time Lancelot had the greatest name of any knight in the
world, and was the most honored, by high and low alike, of all living
champions.