eth from the priory._]

So immediately Sir Gawaine went forth and called for his horse, and they
brought his horse to him and he mounted and departed from that place,
leaving Sir Lavaine alone with his dead.

And it remaineth here to be said that Sir Gawaine went directly from
that place to the court of the King, and when he had come there he told
only of those adventures that had happened to him when the Lady Vivien
had bewitched him. But of those other matters: to wit, of the nativity
of Galahad and of the death of the Lady Elaine, he said naught to any
one but concealed those things for the time being in his own heart.

Yet ever he pondered those things and meditated upon them in the silent
watches of the night. For the thought of those things filled him at once
with joy and with a sort of terror; with hope and with a manner of
despair; wherefore his spirit was troubled because of those things which
he had beheld, for he knew not what their portent might be.

[Illustration: The Barge of the Dead]

[Illustration]

Conclusion

Now after Sir Bors had departed and after Sir Gawaine had departed as
aforesaid--the one at the one time and the other at the other--there
came several of those of the priory to that cell of death. And they
lifted up that still and peaceful figure and bare it away to the chapel
of the priory. And they laid it upon a bier in the chapel and lit
candles around about the bier, and they chanted all night in the chapel
a requiem to the repose of the gentle soul that was gone. And when the
morning light had dawned Sir Lavaine came to that chapel when the
candles were still alight in the dull gray of the early day and he
kneeled for a long time in prayer beside the bier.

Thereafter and when he had ended his prayers, he arose and departed from
that place, and he went to the people of the priory, and he said to
them, "Whither is it that this river floweth?" They say: "It floweth
down from this place past the King's town of Camelot, and thence it
floweth onward until it floweth into the sea to the southward."

[Sidenote: _Sir Lavaine findeth a boat._]

Sir Lavaine said, "Is there ere a boat at this place that may float upon
the river?" And they say to him: "Yea, Messire, there is a barge and
there is a man that saileth that barge and that man is deaf and dumb
from birth." At that Sir Lavaine said: "I pray you to bring me to where
that deaf and dumb bargeman is."

So one of those to who