Against these did the Sieur Rudel make war, and gathering the nobles and yeomen he mustered them in boats and prepared to sail forth to what he believed was the last of his adventures, knowing not that it was indeed but the beginning. And to the princess he said: "Lady, I have served you faithfully, as a gentleman should serve his queen. From nothing have I drawn back that could establish or increase you. Therefore when I get me home again, one boon will I ask of you, and I pray you of your mercy grant it me."
"I will well," replied the princess. "For such loyal service hath no queen known before—nay, not even Dame Helen among the Trojans."
So right gladly did the Sieur Rudel depart from her, and down he walked among the sandhills, where he found Solita standing in a hollow in the midst of a cloud of sand which the sharp wind whirled about her. Nothing she said to him, but she stood with downcast head and eyes that stung with tears.
"Solita," said he, "the Princess hath granted me such boon as I may ask on my return. What say you?"
And she answered in a low voice. "Who am I, my lord, that I should oppose the will of the princess? A nameless maiden, meet only to yoke with a nameless yeoman!"
At that the Sieur Rudel laughed and said, "Look you into a mirror, sweet! and your face will gainsay your words."
She lifted her eyes to his and the light came into them again, so that they danced behind the tears, and Rudel clipped her about the waist for all that he had not as yet merited her, and kissed her upon the lips and the forehead and upon her white hands and wrists.
But she, gazing past his head, saw the blowing sands beyond and the armed men in the boats upon the sea, and "O, Rudel, my sweet lord!" she cried, "never till this moment did I know how barren and lonely was the coast. Come back, and that soon—for of a truth I dread to be left alone!"
"In God's good time and if so He will, I will come back, and from the moment of my coming I will never again depart from you."
"Promise me that!" she said, clinging to him with her arms twined about his neck, and he promised her, and so, comforting her a little more, he got him into his boat and sailed away upon his errand.