Incensed at this, Lancelot dealt the fellow a blow with his mailed fist that stretched him senseless on the ground. Then he turned to the carter's comrade.
"Strike me not, fair sir," pleaded this fellow. "I will bring you where you wish."
"Then drive me and this cart to the gate of Meliagrance's castle."
"Leap into the cart, and you shall be there before the day grows old."
This Lancelot did, and the carter lashed his horse forward with all speed, for he was in mortal fear of the knight's hard fist.
An hour and a half afterwards, as Guenever and her ladies stood in a window of the castle, they saw a cart approaching, in which stood upright an armed knight, resting on his spear. Even at that distance they knew him by his shield to be Lancelot du Lake.
"A noble and trusty friend he is, indeed, to come in such a fashion," said the queen. "Hard bested he must have been, to be forced to ride hither in a woodman's cart."
As they looked, the cart came to the castle gates, and Lancelot sprang from it to the ground, his heart full of rage and passion.
"Where art thou, traitor?" he cried, in a voice that rang throughout the castle. "Come forth, thou disgrace to the Round Table fellowship! Come, with all your men; for here am I, Lancelot du Lake, who will fight you all single-handed on this question."
As he spoke he thrust the gates open with such force that the porter, who sought to hold them shut, was hurled like a dead man to the earth.