Knight! though now you will regard little what such as we can do! Good Lady, quoth he, my will will always be to serve you for the great favours which I have received at your hands, but my power will alway be weak to requite them. Then having saluted her other friends, she proceeded to the garden gate, and there giving the two fair children into Esplandian's care, she went in, and was so well received as never other woman was in other place. She looked round, and seeing all that goodly company, exclaimed, O my heart! see what thou wilt hereafter, thou wilt feel it like solitude, after having in one day seen the best Knights in the world, and the fairest and most honourable Queens and Damsels that ever were born, and the truest love? So she besought leave of the Queen that she might be Oriana's guest; and there she was honoured of them as though she had been the Lady of all.
CHAPTER 43.
Dragonis, the Cousin of Amadis, was not in the Firm Island when Amadis divided the conquests among the Knights, and gave them those Damsels in marriage; for he had gone from the Monastery of Lubayna with a Damsel to deliver her father, the which adventure he had happily accomplished, and being then near Mongaza he had gone thither, and was now returned to the Firm Island in company with Don Galvanes and Madasima. Now because he was so good a Knight, Amadis, who dearly loved him, took him aside, and told him, that he had learnt how the King of the Profound Island, who had fled from the battle of Lubayna sorely wounded, was since dead, and that he would give him that Island to be the King thereof, that the inheritance of his father might descend to his brother Palomir, and
the Princess Estrelleta to be his wife. Willingly did Dragonis accept of this Princess and that island for a kingdom, though he had before determined to go with Don Bruneo and Quadragante, and assist in putting them in possession of their dominions, and he thanked Amadis as so good an offer deserved, saying, that he was ready to follow his advice, and at all times bound to his service.
Amadis then asked of King Lisuarte the dutchy of Bristol for Don Guilan the Pensive, and the Dutchess, whom he had loved so long, for his wife; the which the King readily granted in love to Amadis, and for the desert of that good Knight; for this favour Amadis kissed the King's hand, and Don Guilan would have kissed his, but Amadis embraced him lovingly, like the man in the world who was more bountiful and gentle to his friends.