At this Kay stood aside, and Lancelot attacked the three miscreants so fiercely that within six strokes he felled them all to the ground. They now begged for mercy, yielding to him as a man of matchless skill.
"I will not take your yielding," he replied. "Yield to Sir Kay, here, whom you foully over-matched."
"You ask too much of us, fair sir. It is not just that we should yield to him whom we would have vanquished but for you."
"Think well," returned Lancelot. "You shall yield or die. The choice is yours."
"That is a choice with but one side. Yield we must, if death is the alternative."
"Then I bid you on Whitsunday next, to present yourselves to Queen Guenever at King Arthur's court, and put yourselves in her grace and mercy, saying that Sir Kay sent you there as prisoners."
This they took oath to do, each knight swearing upon his sword; whereupon Lancelot suffered them to depart.
He now knocked at the gate with the pommel of his sword, till his host came, who started with surprise on seeing him there.
"I thought you were safe a-bed," he said.
"So I was. But I sprang from the window to help an old fellow of mine."