CHAPTER II.
THE MARVEL OF THE FLOATING SWORD.
Many and strange were the events that followed those we have just related, and great trouble and woe came therefrom. For when Sir Bors returned to Camelot and told the story of the wedding of Lancelot and Elaine, much was the secret talk and great the scandal. And when the news came to Guenever's ears she flamed with wrath.
Not long afterwards, Lancelot returned, still half frenzied with the deception that had been practised upon him. When Guenever saw him she accused him bitterly of being a traitor to love, and harshly bade him leave the court, and never come again within her sight.
This bitter reviling turned Lancelot's frenzy to a sudden madness. With distracted brain he leaped from a window into a garden, and ran like a wild man through wood and brake, heedless that his clothes were torn and his flesh rent with thorns and briers. Thus hotly burns despised love in the human heart and brain, and thus it may turn the strongest senses away and bring madness to the clearest mind.
On learning what had passed, Bors and Hector went to the queen, and accused her harshly of the great wrong she had done to the noble Lancelot. But she was already torn with remorse, and she knelt before these noble knights, begging their forgiveness, and praying them pitifully to seek Lancelot and bring him back to the court.
Months passed and Lancelot returned not, nor could he be found, though he was sought through many lands. For he kept afar from cities and courts, and roamed through wilds and wastes, where he had many adventures in his madness, and did strange and wild things.
For two years he wandered hither and thither in frenzy, until at length he came to King Pellam's city of Corbin, and to the castle where dwelt the fair Elaine. Here he was given shelter in a little outhouse, with straw to sleep on, while every day they threw him meat and set him drink, for none would venture near a madman of such savage aspect.
But one day as he slept, Elaine chanced to behold him, and knew him at once for Lancelot. Telling a trusty baron of her discovery, she had the distracted knight borne still sleeping into a tower chamber in which was kept the holy vessel, the Sangreal, concealed from all eyes save those of persons of saintly life. Lancelot was laid near this, and when all had left the chamber a man of sanctity entered and uncovered the vessel. Such was its holy influence that it wrought marvellously upon the distracted knight as he lay there asleep and the madness passed away from his brain. When he woke he was himself again, as whole a man in mind and body as any that stood upon the earth. For so healing was the virtue of that precious vessel that it not only drove the cloud of madness from his mind, but gave him back all his old might and comeliness of body.
Then, ashamed of his frenzy, and anxious not to be known, Lancelot assumed the name of the Chevalier Mal Fet, or the knight who has trespassed, and took up his abode with Elaine and many knights and ladies at a castle given him by King Pellam. This stood on an island in the midst of a deep and clear lake, which Lancelot named the Joyous Isle. And now, filled again with martial fervor, he made it known far and wide that he would joust with any knights that came that way, and that any one who should put him to the worst would receive as a prize a jewel of worth and a jerfalcon.