When they got through speaking like this, Lancelot looked around and spotted a stand of linden trees, full of twigs and branches. Do you know what he did? He cut down half of them and made them into a blind that he could hide under. His helmet, hauberk, and his horse, from its croup up to its head-except its face which Lancelot left uncovered because he did not want it to suffocate from the heat-nothing of all this could be seen sticking out from under the blind. Right after all this was done, the swift panther arrived. Lancelot went forward to face it, while the king went to one side, and the young man with the taut bow kept to the other.

Now I do not know how a battle could have been avoided when the panther came there, flashing flames and fire from both nostrils. Lancelot came forward and landed a good and lucky hit on the beast's left nostril, which wounded it deeply and made it start spurting red blood.

The bad wound he received made the panther snarl viciously at Lancelot. If it had wanted to, it still could have retreated. But it did not think about fighting that way. The beast always conquered everything in the world that opposed him by sheer force. It had never resorted to any deception (like covering itself up with branches). Still, if Lancelot had not done that, the mistake would have quickly cost him his life.

Lancelot rushed the panther and tried to strike it again. And in fact he did, and managed to thrust his lance's forged iron shaft deep down the beast's throat into its heart: thus was the panther very seriously wounded.

Although it was greatly shocked by the hurt it felt, it still could not understand what or who had caused it. It looked around, intending to kill and eat whoever had done it. But it saw nothing except a blind of twigs near him.

Marvels of Rigomer