"So I told all the knights and we fasted and prayed for many weeks. Then my sister cut off all her long streaming silken hair which used to fall to her feet and out of it braided a strong sword belt and with silver and crimson thread she wove into it a crimson grail in a silver beam. Then she bound it on our beautiful boy knight, Sir Galahad, and said:
"'My knight of heaven, go forth, for you shall see what I have seen and far in the spiritual city you will be crowned king.' Then she sent the deathless passion of her eyes through him and he believed what she said.
"Then came a year of miracles. In our great hall there stood a chair which Merlin had fashioned carved with strange figures like a serpent and in and out among the strange figures ran a scroll of strange letters in a language nobody knew like a serpent. Merlin called it the Seat Perilous, because he said if any one sat in it he would get lost. And Galahad said that if he got lost in it he would save himself. So one summer night Sir Galahad sat down in the chair and all at once there was a cracking of the roofs above us, and a blast and thunder, and in the thunder there was a cry and in the blast there was a beam of light seven times clearer than the daylight. Down the beam stole the Holy Grail all covered over with a luminous cloud. Then it passed away but every knight saw his brother knight's faces in a glory and we all rose and stared at each other until at last I found my voice and swore a vow.
"I swore that because I had not seen the Holy Grail behind the cloud I would ride away a year and a day in quest of it until I could see it as my sister saw it. Galahad swore too, and good Sir Bors, and Lancelot and many others, knights, and Gawain louder than all the rest.
"The king was not in the hall that day for he had gone out to help some poor maiden, but as he came back over the plains beyond Camelot he saw the roofs rolling in smoke and thought that his wonderfully dear, beautiful hall which Merlin had built for him so wonderfully was afire. So he rode fast and rushed into the tumult of knights and asked me what it all meant.
"'Woe is me!' cried the king when I told him. 'Had I been here you would not have sworn the vows.'
"'My king,' I answered boldly, had you been here you would have sworn the vows yourself.'
"'Yes, yes,' said he, 'are you so bold when you didn't see the Grail? You didn't see farther than the cloud, and what can you expect to see now if you go out into the wilderness?'
"'No, no, Lord, I didn't see the Grail, I heard the sound, I saw the light and since I didn't see the holy thing I swore the vow that I would follow it until I did see.'
"'Then he asked us, knight by knight, whether we had seen it and each one said, 'No, no, Lord, that was why we swore our vows,' but suddenly Galahad called out, 'But I saw the Holy Grail, Sir Arthur, and heard the cry, "O Galahad, follow me."'