Ralph nodded cheerfully, and set off on his task, and was the readier therein because the Lady looked on him kindly and compassionately as he went by her.  He found the horses speedily, a black horse that was of the Black Knight, and a bay of the Knight of the Sun, and he came back with them lightly.

But when he came to the oak-tree again, lo, the knight and the Lady both kneeling over the body of the Black Knight, and Ralph saw that the Knight of the Sun was sobbing and weeping sorely, so that he deemed that he was taking leave of his friend that lay dead there:  but when Ralph had tied up those other two steeds by Silverfax and drawn rear to those twain, the Knight of the Sun looked up at him, and spake in a cheerful voice:  “Thou seemest to be no ill man, though thou hast come across my lady; so now I bid thee rejoice that there is a good knight more in the world than we deemed e’en now; for this my friend Walter the Black is alive still.”  “Yea,” said the Lady, “and belike he shall live a long while yet.”

So Ralph looked, and saw that they had stripped the knight of his hauberk and helm, and bared his body, and that the Lady was dressing a great and sore wound in his side; neither was he come to himself again:  he was a young man, and very goodly to look on, dark haired and straight of feature, fair of face; and Ralph felt a grief at his heart as he beheld the Lady’s hands dealing with his bare flesh, though nought the man knew of it belike.

As for the Knight of the Sun, he was no more grim and moody, but smiling and joyous, and he spake and said:  “Young man, this shall stand thee in good stead that I have not slain my friend this bout.  Sooth to say, it might else have gone hard with thee on the way to my house, or still more in my house.  But now be of good heart, for unless of thine own folly thou run on the sword’s point, thou mayst yet live and do well.”  Then he turned to the Lady and said:  “Dame, for as good a leech as ye be, ye may not heal this man so that he may sit in his saddle within these ten days; and now what is to do in this matter?”

She looked on him with smiling lips and a strange light in her eyes, and said:  “Yea, forsooth, what wilt thou do?  Wilt thou abide here by Walter thyself alone, and let me bring the imp of Upmeads home to our house?  Or wilt thou ride home and send folk with a litter to us?  Or shall this youngling ride at all adventure, and seek to Sunway through the blind woodland?  Which shall it be?”

The knight laughed outright, and said:  “Yea, fair one, this is much like to the tale of the carle at the ferry with the fox, and the goat, and the cabbage.”

There was scarce a smile on her face as she said gently:  “One thing is to be thought of, that Walter’s soul is not yet so fast in his body that either thou or some rough-handed leech may be sure of healing him; it must be this hand, and the learning which it hath learned which must deal with him for a while.  And she stretched out her arm over the wounded man, with the fingers pointing down the water, and reddened withal, as if she felt the hearts’ greediness of the two men who were looking on her beauty.