thur, while others merely make him a nephew of the
king--rebels against Arthur, who engages in his last battle, near the
Castle of Tintagel, where he was born.

In this encounter all are slain on both sides, and Arthur, having
finally killed the traitor Mordred, after receiving from him a
grievous wound, finds no one near to help or sustain him save Sir
Bedevere. Knowing his wonderful blade Excalibure must return to its
donor ere he departs, Arthur thrice orders his henchman to cast it
into the mere. Twice Sir Bedevere hides the sword instead of obeying,
but the third time, having exactly carried out the royal orders, he
reports having seen a hand rise out of the Lake, catch and brandish
Excalibure, and vanish beneath the waters with it! Arthur is next
carried by Sir Bedevere down to the water's edge, where a mysterious
barge receives the almost dying king. In this barge are three
black-veiled queens,--the king's step-sisters,--and, when Arthur's
head has been tenderly laid in the lap of Morgana the Fay, he
announces he is about to sail off to the Isle of Avalon "to be healed
of his wound." Although the Isle of Avalon was evidently a poetical
mediaeval version of the "bourne whence no man returns," people long
watched for Arthur's home-coming, for he was a very real personage to
readers of epics and romances in the Middle Ages.

Guinevere--her sin having been discovered by her hitherto fabulously
blind husband--took refuge in a nunnery at Almesbury, where she
received a farewell visit from Arthur and an assurance of his
forgiveness, before he rode into his last fight.

As for Launcelot, he, too, devoted his last days to penance and prayer
in a monastery. There he remained until warned in a vision that
Guinevere was dead. Leaving his cell, Launcelot hastened to Almesbury,
where, finding Guinevere had ceased to breathe, he bore her corpse to
Glastonbury--where according to some versions Arthur had been conveyed
by the barge and buried--and there laid her to rest at her husband's
feet.

Then Launcelot again withdrew to his cell, where he died after six
months' abstinence and prayer. It was his heir, Sir Ector, who
feelingly pronounced the eulogy of the knight _par excellence_ of the
mediaeval legends in the following terms: "'Ah, Sir Lancelot,' he said,
'thou were head of all Christian knights; and now I dare say,' said
Sir Ector, 'that, Sir Lancelot, there thou liest, thou were never
matched of none earthly knight's