Now while Aucassin and Nicolete held this parley together, the town’s guards came down a street, with swords drawn beneath their cloaks, for the Count Garin had charged them that if they could take her they should slay her.  But the sentinel that was on the tower saw them coming, and heard them speaking of Nicolete as they went, and threatening to slay her.

“God!” quoth he, “this were great pity to slay so fair a maid!  Right great charity it were if I could say aught to her, and they perceive it not, and she should be on her guard against them, for if they slay her, then were Aucassin, my damoiseau, dead, and that were great pity.”

Here one singeth: 

   Valiant was the sentinel,
   Courteous, kind, and practised well,
   So a song did sing and tell
   Of the peril that befell. 
   “Maiden fair that lingerest here,
   Gentle maid of merry cheer,
   Hair of gold, and eyes as clear
   As the water in a mere,
   Thou, meseems, hast spoken word
   To thy lover and thy lord,
   That would die for thee, his dear;
   Now beware the ill accord,
   Of the cloaked men of the sword,
   These have sworn and keep their word,
   They will put thee to the sword
      Save thou take heed!”

Then speak they, say they, tell they the Tale: 

“Ha!” quoth Nicolete, “be the soul of thy father and the soul of thy mother in the rest of Paradise, so fairly and so courteously hast thou spoken me!  Please God, I will be right ware of them, God keep me out of their hands.”

So she shrank under her mantle into the shadow of the pillar till they had passed by, and then took she farewell of Aucassin, and so fared till she came unto the castle wall.  Now that wall was wasted and broken, and some deal mended, so she clomb thereon till she came between wall and fosse, and so looked down, and saw that the fosse was deep and steep, whereat she was sore adread.

“Ah God,” saith she, “sweet Saviour!  If I let myself fall hence, I shall break my neck, and if here I abide, to-morrow they will take me and burn me in a fire.  Yet liefer would I perish here than that to-morrow the folk should stare on me for a gazing-stock.”

Then she crossed herself, and so let herself slip into the fosse, and when she had come to the bottom, her fair feet, and fair hands that had not custom thereof, were bruised and frayed, and the blood springing from a dozen places, yet felt she no pain nor hurt, by reason of the great dread wherein she went.  But if she were in cumber to win there, in worse was she to win out.  But she deemed that there to abide was of none avail, and she found a pike sharpened, that they of the city had thrown out to keep the hold.  Therewith made she one stepping place after another, till, with much travail, she climbed the wall.  Now the forest lay within two crossbow shots, and the forest was of thirty leagues this way and that.  Therein also were wild beasts, and beasts serpentine, and she feared that if she entered there they would slay her.  But anon she deemed that if men found her there they would hale her back into the town to burn her.