Then King Arthur groaned very deeply, and he said, “Alas and alas! So hath another of my noble Knights of the Round Table died and left me!” And then he said, “So would I weep for him, but I cannot weep; for also in a little while I shall be with him and with them who are gone.” And he said to Sir Bedivere, “Remove my helmet, and search my hurt.” So Sir Bedivere removed the helmet of King Arthur and he beheld the wound upon his head that it was very deep and bitter, so that the brains of his head were exposed in that wound. And Sir Bedivere wept when he beheld that wound; for he wist that of it King Arthur must die.
But King Arthur said, “Weep not, Sir Bedivere, but do straightway as I tell thee.” And he said, “Beholdest thou Excalibur strapped about my loins?”
And Sir Bedivere said, “Yea, Lord,” and ever Sir Bedivere wept.
King Arthur said, “Take that sword and carry him to the water and cast him into the water: then return thou hither and tell me what thou seest.”
Sir Bedivere taketh Excalibur.
Then Sir Bedivere unbuckled the strap from about the loins of King Arthur, and he drew the strap from beneath him. Then he folded the strap around the blade of Excalibur and he took the sword with him and went away with it. But when Sir Bedivere had come out into the moonlight, the moonlight shone very brightly down upon the hilt of Excalibur, and Sir Bedivere beheld how that the hilt and the handle of the sword were studded all over with jewels, and the gold into which they were inset flamed and blazed in the moonlight as with a thousand colors.
And Sir Bedivere said to himself, “Why should I cast this splendid sword into the sea? Behold how richly it is studded with jewels so that it flashes and flames with pure light. Certes, the King raves when he telleth me to cast it into the sea! Rather will I keep this sword, to show to those generations who are yet to come how great and how splendid was the estate of King Arthur.”
Sir Bedivere doth not cast the sword away.
So Sir Bedivere looked about him and he beheld a dead and riven tree that stood there, all stark and leafless in the moonlight. So he took the sword Excalibur and he hid it beneath the roots of that tree. Anon he returned to King Arthur, and he said to the King, “Lord, your behest is done and I have cast that sword into the sea.”
Quoth the King, “What sawest thou, Sir Bedivere?”