he showed the same courtesy and gentleness.  For he had seen the maiden Solita, and of an evening when the Court was feasting in the hall and the music of harps rippled sweetly in the ears, he would slip from the table as one that was busied in statecraft, and in company with Solita pace the terrace in the dark, beneath the lighted windows.  Yet neither spoke of love, though loving was their intercourse.  Solita for that her modesty withheld her, and she feared even to hope that so great a lord should give his heart to her keeping; Rudel because he had not achieved enough to merit she should love him.  “In a little,” he would mutter, “in a little!  One more thing must I do, and then will I claim my guerdon of the Princess Joceliande.”

Now this one more thing was the highest and most dangerous emprise of all that he had undertaken.  Beyond the confines of the kingdom there dwelt a great horde of men that had come to Brittany from the East in many deep ships and had settled upon the coast, whence they would embark and, travelling hard by the land, burn and ravage the sea-borders for many days.

Against these did the Sieur Rudel make war, and gathering the nobles and yeomen he mustered them in boats and prepared to sail forth to what he believed was the last of his adventures, knowing not that it was indeed but the beginning.  And to the princess he said:  “Lady, I have served you faithfully, as a gentleman should serve his queen.  From nothing have I drawn back that could establish or increase you.  Therefore when I get me home again, one boon will I ask of you, and I pray you of your mercy grant it me.”

“I will well,” replied the princess.  “For such loyal service hath no queen known before—­nay, not even Dame Helen among the Trojans.”

So right gladly did the Sieur Rudel depart from her, and down he walked among the sandhills, where he found Solita standing in a hollow in the midst of a cloud of sand which the sharp wind whirled about her.  Nothing she said to him, but she stood with downcast head and eyes that stung with tears.

“Solita,” said he, “the Princess hath granted me such boon as I may ask on my return.  What say you?”

And she answered in a low voice.  “Who am I, my lord, that I should oppose the will of the princess?  A nameless maiden, meet only to yoke with a nameless yeoman!”

At that the Sieur Rudel laughed and said, “Look you into a mirror, sweet! and your face will gainsay your words.”

She lifted her eyes to his and the light came into them again, so that they danced behind the tears, and Rudel clipped her about the waist for all that he had not as yet merited her, and kissed her upon the lips and the forehead and upon her white hands and wrists.

But she, gazing past his head, saw the blowing sands beyond and the armed men in the boats upon the sea, and “O, Rudel, my sweet lord!” she cried, “never till this moment did I know how barren and lonely was the coast.  Come back, and that soon—­for of a truth I dread to be left alone!”