CHAPTER VI
 
 How Sir Bedivere found him on the morrow dead in an
 hermitage, and how he abode there with the hermit
 
 
 THEN was Sir Bedivere glad, and thither he went; and
 when he came into the chapel, he saw where lay an hermit
 grovelling on all four, there fast by a tomb was new graven.
 When the hermit saw Sir Bedivere he knew him well, for
 he was but little to-fore Bishop of Canterbury, that Sir
 Mordred flemed.  Sir, said Bedivere, what man is there
 interred that ye pray so fast for?  Fair son, said the
 hermit, I wot not verily, but by deeming.  But this night,
 at midnight, here came a number of ladies, and brought
 hither a dead corpse, and prayed me to bury him; and
 here they offered an hundred tapers, and they gave me an
 hundred besants.  Alas, said Sir Bedivere, that was my
 lord King Arthur, that here lieth buried in this chapel.
 Then Sir Bedivere swooned; and when he awoke he
 prayed the hermit he might abide with him still there, to
 live with fasting and prayers.  For from hence will I
 never go, said Sir Bedivere, by my will, but all the days
 of my life here to pray for my lord Arthur.  Ye are
 welcome to me, said the hermit, for I know ye better
 than ye ween that I do.  Ye are the bold Bedivere, and
 the full noble duke, Sir Lucan the Butler, was your
 brother.  Then Sir Bedivere told the hermit all as ye
 have heard to-fore.  So there bode Sir Bedivere with the
 hermit that was to-fore Bishop of Canterbury, and there
 Sir Bedivere put upon him poor clothes, and served the
 hermit full lowly in fasting and in prayers.
 
 Thus of Arthur I find never more written in books
 that be authorised, nor more of the very certainty of his
 death heard I never read, but thus was he led away in a
 ship wherein were three queens; that one was King
 Arthur's sister, Queen Morgan le Fay; the other was the
 Queen of Northgalis; the third was the Queen of the
 Waste Lands.  Also there was Nimue, the chief lady of
 the lake, that had wedded Pelleas the good knight; and
 this lady had done much for King Arthur, for she would
 never suffer Sir Pelleas to be in no place where he should
 be in danger of his life; and so he lived to the uttermost
 of his days with her in great rest.  More of the death of
 King Arthur could I never find, but that ladies brought
 him to his burials; and such one was buried there, that
 the hermit bare witness that sometime was Bishop of
 Canterbury, but yet the hermit knew not in certain that
 he was verily the body of King Arthur: for this tale Sir
 Bedivere, knight of the Table Round, made it to be
 written.