"Sir," saith she to Lancelot, "Are you wounded in any place?" "Damsel, nowhere, thank God!" Another damsel leadeth a horse into the orchard. The damsel of the castle looketh at Lancelot. "Sir," saith the damsel, "Meseemeth that you are not over joyous." "Damsel," saith he, "If I be not, I have good right, for I have lost the thing in the world that most I loved." "And you have won me," saith she, "so you remain not here, that am the fairest damsel in this kingdom, and I have saved you your life for this, that you grant me your love, for mine own would I fain give unto you." "Gramercy, damsel," saith Lancelot, "Your love and your good will fain would I have; but neither you nor none other damsel ought not to have affiance in me, and I might so soon set carelessly aside the love to whom my heart owed its obedience, for the worthiness and the courtesy that were lodged in her. Nor never hereafter, so long as I live, shall I love none other in like manner; wherefore all others commend I to God, and to yourself, as for leave-taking to one at whose service I fain would be; I say that if you shall have need of me, and so I be in place and free, I will do all I may to protect your honour." IX. "Ha, God!" saith the damsel, "How am I betrayed, sith that I am parted from the best knight in the world! Lancelot, you have done that which never yet no knight might do! Now am I grieved that you should escape on such wise, and that your life hath been saved in this manner by me. Better should I love you mine own dead, than another's living. Now would I fain that you had had your head smitten off, and that it were hanging with the others! So would I solace myself by beholding it!" Lancelot took no account of that he heard, for the grief that lay at his heart of the Queen. He mounteth on his horse and issueth forth of the orchard by a postern gate, and entereth into the forest, and commendeth him to God. The lord of the Castle of the Griffons marvelleth much that Lancelot delayeth so long. He thinketh that he durst not come down, and saith to his knights, "Let us go up and cut off his head, sith that he durst not come down." He maketh search for him all through the hall and the chambers, but findeth him not. "He hath gone," saith he, "through the cavern, so have the griffons devoured him." So he sendeth the twain most hardy of his knights to see. But the brachet had returned after the damsel, whereof the griffons were wroth, and they forthwith seized on the two knights that entered into their cavern and slew them and devoured. X.