CHAPTER XVII.
THE KNIGHT'S DREAM.
It was between night and dawn of day that the knight was lying on his couch, half-waking, half-sleeping.

Whenever he was on the point of falling asleep a terror seemed to come upon him and scare his rest away, for his slumbers were haunted with spectres.

If he tried, however, to rouse himself in good earnest he felt fanned as by the wings of a swan, and he heard the soft murmuring of waters, until soothed by the agreeable delusion, he sunk back again into a half-conscious state.

At length he must have fallen sound asleep, for it seemed to him as if he were lifted up upon the fluttering wings of the swans and borne by them far over land and sea, while they sang to him their sweetest music.

"The music of the swan! the music of the swan!" he kept saying to himself; "does it not always portend death ?" But it had yet another meaning.