"Then tell him I am ready. But he must provide me with horse and armor, and vow on his knightly honor to keep his word."
"All this he will freely do."
"It seems to me, damsel, that I have seen you before. Have you not been at the court of King Arthur?"
"Not so," said the damsel. "I have never been there, but am the daughter of the lord of this castle, who has always kept me at home."
In this, as the chronicles tell us, she spoke falsely, for she was one of the damsels of Morgan le Fay, and well she knew the king.
Damas was glad at heart to learn that a knight had at last consented to fight for him, and the more so when he saw Arthur and marked his strong limbs and the high spirit in his face. But he and none there save the damsel, knew who his prisoner was.
"It were a pity," said all who saw him, "that such a knight should die in prison. It is wise in him to fight, whatever betide."
Then agreement was made that Arthur should do battle to the uttermost for the lord of the castle, who, on his part, agreed to set free the imprisoned knights. To this covenant both parties took oath, whereupon the twenty knights were brought from their dark prison to the castle hall, and given their freedom and the privilege of seeing the battle.
But now we must leave the story of Arthur and Damas, and turn to that of Accolan of Gaul, the third of the three knights who had gone to sleep in the enchanted ship. This knight was, unknown to Arthur, a lover of Morgan le Fay, being he for whose sake she had counterfeited the magic scabbard of the sword Excalibur.
She loved him, indeed, as ardently as she had grown to hate her royal brother, and through this love had laid a treacherous plot for Arthur's death.