They sought him long, Iseult and Perinis and Brangien together, till at last Brangien saw the helm glittering in the marshy grass:  and Tristan still breathed.  Perinis put him on his horse and bore him secretly to the women’s rooms.  There Iseult told her mother the tale and left the hero with her, and as the Queen unharnessed him, the dragon’s tongue fell from his boot of steel.  Then, the Queen of Ireland revived him by the virtue of an herb and said: 

“Stranger, I know you for the true slayer of the dragon:  but our seneschal, a felon, cut off its head and claims my daughter Iseult for his wage; will you be ready two days hence to give him the lie in battle?”

“Queen,” said he, “the time is short, but you, I think, can cure me in two days.  Upon the dragon I conquered Iseult, and on the seneschal perhaps I shall reconquer her.”

Then the Queen brewed him strong brews, and on the morrow Iseult the Fair got him ready a bath and anointed him with a balm her mother had conjured, and as he looked at her he thought, “So I have found the Queen of the Hair of Gold,” and he smiled as he thought it.  But Iseult, noting it, thought, “Why does he smile, or what have I neglected of the things due to a guest?  He smiles to think I have for—­ gotten to burnish his armour.”

She went and drew the sword from its rich sheath, but when she saw the splinter gone and the gap in the edge she thought of the Morholt’s head.  She balanced a moment in doubt, then she went to where she kept the steel she had found in the skull and she put it to the sword, and it fitted so that the join was hardly seen.

She ran to where Tristan lay wounded, and with the sword above him she cried: 

“You are that Tristan of the Lyonesse, who killed the Morholt, my mother’s brother, and now you shall die in your turn.”

Tristan strained to ward the blow, but he was too weak; his wit, however, stood firm in spite of evil and he said: 

“So be it, let me die:  but to save yourself long memories, listen awhile.  King’s daughter, my life is not only in your power but is yours of right.  My life is yours because you have twice returned it me.  Once, long ago:  for I was the wounded harper whom you healed of the poison of the Morholt’s shaft.  Nor repent the healing:  were not these wounds had in fair fight?  Did I kill the Morholt by treason?  Had he not defied me and was I not held to the defence of my body?  And now this second time also you have saved me.  It was for you I fought the beast.

“But let us leave these things.  I would but show you how my life is your own.  Then if you kill me of right for the glory of it, you may ponder for long years, praising yourself that you killed a wounded guest who had wagered his life in your gaining.”

Iseult replied:  “I hear strange words.  Why should he that killed the Morholt seek me also, his niece?  Doubtless because the Morholt came for a tribute of maidens from Cornwall, so you came to boast returning that you had brought back the maiden who was nearest to him, to Cornwall, a slave.”