"Ah, Aucassin!" she said. "Never will you have joy of me. Your father hates me to death, and I must cross the sea, and go to some strange land."
"If you were to go away," said Aucassin, "you would kill me. The first man that saw you would take you to his bed. And, then, do you think I would wait till I found a knife? No! I would dash my head to pieces against a wall or a rock."
"Ah!" she said. "I love you more than you love me."
"Nay, my sweet lady," said he. "Woman cannot love man as much as man loves woman. Woman only loves with her eyes; man loves with his heart."
Aucassin and Nicolette were thus debating, when the soldiers of the count came marching down the street. Their swords were drawn, and they were seeking for Nicolette to slay her.
"God, it were a great pity to kill so fair a maid!" said the warden of the dungeon. "My young lord Aucassin would die of it, and that would be a great loss to Beaucaire. Would that I could warn Nicolette!"
And with that, he struck up a merry tune, but the words he sang to it were not merry.
Lady with the yellow hair,
Lovely, sweet and debonair,
Now take heed.
Death comes on thee unaware.
Turn thee now; oh, turn and flee;
Death is coming suddenly.
And the swords
Flash that seek to murder thee.
"May God reward you for your fair words!" said Nicolette.
Wrapping herself in her mantle, she hid in the shadows until the soldiers went by. Then she said farewell to Aucassin, and climbed up the castle-wall where it had been broken in the siege. But steep and deep was the moat, and Nicolette's fair hands and feet were bleeding when she got out. But she did not feel any pain, because of the great fear that was on her lest she should fall into the hands of the count's men.