"When Lancelot had been at Glastonbury for a long time he had a dream one night. He dreamed that an angel stood beside him and said to him: 'Lancelot, take all your fellows here who were knights of the Round Table to-morrow and go to Almesbury. When you come there the abbess, Queen Guinevere, will be dead. Bring her here and bury her in the chapel beside the King.' And twice more that same night Lancelot had this dream.
"In the morning Lancelot told the abbot of his dream, and the abbot said that it would be best for him to take his fellows with him and go to Almesbury, as he had been told to do. So they all set out, and when they came to the abbey at Almesbury the nuns knew who they were and why they had come, without being told. For they said: 'Our abbess died not an hour ago, and she told us that after she was dead the monk who used to be Sir Lancelot of the Lake would come for her and would bury her at Glastonbury, beside the King. She had been told of it in a dream.'
"So Lancelot and his fellows took the body of the Queen back with them to Glastonbury. There they made another grave before the altar in the chapel, beside the grave of King Arthur, and buried Queen Guinevere in it.
"And after this was done Lancelot would scarcely leave that chapel. He was there for nearly all of every day and much of every night, kneeling over the graves of the King and the Queen and praying. He would eat scarcely anything and he slept but little. And so he grew thin and pale and weak. The abbot and his friends could not comfort him or make him eat, and at last he told them that he should live only a little longer. 'When I am dead,' he said, 'take me and bury me in the chapel of my own old castle of Joyous Gard. I would far rather lie here in your chapel, near my King and my Queen, but years ago I made a vow that I would be buried in Joyous Gard, and I must keep that vow, so take me there.'
"That night the abbot awoke some of the monks by laughing aloud in his sleep. They went to the abbot's bed and he awoke and said: 'I have had the most beautiful dream that I have ever had in my life.'
"'What was it?' said Bors.
"'I dreamed,' the abbot said, 'that I saw Lancelot in the midst of a great company of angels. More angels there were than I ever saw of men in an army. Some of them lifted Lancelot up and they all rose to Heaven. I could see Lancelot's face as they went, and it was full of peace and gladness. They came near the gates of Heaven and the gates were opened for them and they all passed in. And as they passed I could see the great light that shone out and I could hear voices singing, and the gates were closed and then I awoke.'
"Then they all went to Lancelot's bed. He did not awake when they came to him, as the abbot had done. He lay still and his face was full of peace and gladness and he was dead.
"They took him the next day, all his friends and the abbot with them, and they journeyed slowly till they came to Joyous Gard. There they buried him and then they journeyed slowly back again to Glastonbury. They did not talk much as they went, but now and then they spoke a little, sadly, as people will at such times, of the older and happier days. To Bors and to some of the others it seemed only a little while since a hundred and fifty knights sat at the Round Table in the hall at Camelot. Here were some of the knights of the Round Table still, but the glory of it had passed away with the King and Galahad and Gawain and Lancelot."
