The Knight almost fainted when he heard these strange words, and understood the length of time he was to remain in his transformed condition. His attendant donkey had also heard the words, and treasured them up in his memory. Every day, while his master slept, he ranged the country round, searching for the purple rose, but every evening returned as wise as he set out. Thus the seven years passed mournfully away. One day, unmindful how the time had sped, as he trotted on, every now and then stopping and uttering a melancholy bray, his nostrils scented the fragrance of some roses; and though his first impulse was to eat them, on examining them more closely, he observed that they were of lustrous beauty and of a purple hue. Plucking a number of them, he trotted back to Saint Denis. He would have brayed with delight, but, had he done so, he would have dropped the roses, so he restrained himself till he had laid them before his master's nose. Instantly the Knight began to devour them, as did the faithful donkey, when, a stupor coming over them, they couched down on the green-sward. Presently extraordinary sensations came over them both, and the horns and hoofs began to loosen, and the skin to roll up in folds, and a refreshing shower falling, both Knight and Squire, on opening their eyes, discovered, to their infinite satisfaction, that they were no longer brute beasts, but that they had recovered their former comely shapes, and that their hairy hides lay vacant on the ground. Near them were their arms, now sadly in want of polishing, while their trusty steeds, long roaming the rich pastures around, no sooner beheld than recognising them, trotted up to bear them once more to the field of battle or of fame. Their first care was to burnish up their armour and their weapons. For many a weary hour they rubbed. "We might have saved ourselves all this trouble, and spent the last seven years more pleasantly and profitably, had we not idled away our time in the magnificent castle of that beautiful lady down there," observed Saint Denis, as he scrubbed away. "Certes, Master dear, it's a failing I for one have when I get into the society of the fair sex, I feel little inclination to leave them; but we have had a pretty sharp lesson, and I hope to amend for the future." The task was performed at last. Then the Champion, recollecting what the mulberry-tree had said, drew his sword, and with one blow cut the stout trunk quite asunder. Instantly there issued forth a bright flame, from the midst of which appeared a lovely damsel, clothed in a robe of yellow silk, made from the cocoons of the innumerable silk-worms, which fed on the tree.