The Well at the World's End: A Tale

  CHAPTER 17

  They Come Through the Woodland to the Thirsty Desert

  So they ride their ways, and when they were come well into the wildwoodpast the house, and had spoken but few words to each other, Ralph putforth his hand, and stayed Ursula, and they gat off their horses undera great-limbed oak, and did off their armour, and sat down on thegreensward there, and loved each other dearly, and wept for joy oftheir pain and travail and love. And afterwards, as they sat side byside leaning up against the great oak-bole, Ralph spake and said: "Noware we two once again all alone in the uttermost parts of the earth,and belike we are not very far from the Well at the World's End; andnow I have bethought me that if we gain that which we seek for, andbear back our lives to our own people, the day may come when we aregrown old, for as young as we may seem, that we shall be as lonely thenas we are this hour, and that the folk round about us shall be to us asmuch and no more than these trees and the wild things that dwellamongst them."

  She looked on him and laughed as one over-happy, and said: "Thourunnest forward swiftly to meet trouble, beloved! But I say that wellwill it be in those days if I love the folk then as well as now I lovethese trees and the wild things whose house they are."

  And she rose up therewith and threw her arms about the oak-bole andkissed its ruggedness, while Ralph as he lay kissed the sleekness ofher feet. And there came a robin hopping over the leaves anigh them,for in that wood most of the creatures, knowing not man, were tame tohim, and feared the horses of those twain more than their riders. Andnow as Ursula knelt to embrace Ralph with one hand, she held out theother to the said robin who perched on her wrist, and sat there as ahooded falcon had done, and fell to whistling his sweet notes, as if hewere a-talking to those new-comers: then Ursula gave him a song-rewardof their broken meat, and he flew up and perched on her shoulder, andnestled up against her cheek, and she laughed happily and said: "Loyou, sweet, have not the wild things understood my words, and sent thisfair messenger to foretell us all good?"

  "It is good," said Ralph laughing, "yet the oak-tree hath not spokenyet, despite of all thy kissing: and lo there goes thy friend therobin, now thou hast no more meat to give him."

  "He is flying towards the Well at the World's End," she said, "andbiddeth us onward: let us to horse and hasten: for if thou wilt havethe whole truth concerning my heart, it is this, that some chance-hapmay yet take thee from me ere thou hast drunk of the waters of theWell."

  "Yea," said Ralph, "and in the innermost of my heart lieth the fearthat mayhappen there is no Well, and no healing in it if we find it,and that death, and the backward way may yet sunder us. This is theworst of my heart, and evil is my coward fear."

  But she cast her arms about him and kissed and caressed him, and criedout: "Yea, then fair have been the days of our journeying, and fairthis hour of the green oak! And bold and true thine heart that hathled thee thus far, and won thee thy desire of my love."

  So then they armed them, and mounted their horses and set forward.They lived well while they were in the wood, but on the third day theycame to where it thinned and at last died out into a stony waste likeunto that which they had passed through before they came to the Houseof the Sorceress, save that this lay in ridges as the waves of a greatsea; and these same ridges they were bidden to cross over at theirhighest, lest they should be bewildered in a maze of little hills anddales leading no whither.

  So they entered on this desert, having filled their water-skins at aclear brook, whereat they rejoiced when they found that the face of thewilderness was covered with a salt scurf, and that naught grew theresave a sprinkling of small sage bushes.

  Now on the second day of their riding this ugly waste, as they came upover the brow of one of these stony ridges, Ralph the far-sighted criedout suddenly: "Hold! for I see a man weaponed."

  "Where is he?" quoth Ursula, "and what is he about?" Said Ralph: "Heis up yonder on the swell of the next ridge, and by seeming is asleepleaning against a rock."

  Then he bent the Turk bow and set an arrow on the string and they wenton warily. When they were down at the foot of the ridge Ralph hailedthe man with a lusty cry, but gat no answer of him; so they went on upthe bent, till Ralph said: "Now I can see his face under his helm, andit is dark and the eyes are hollow: I will off horse and go up to himafoot, but do thou, beloved, sit still in thy saddle."

  But when he had come nigher, he turned and cried out to her: "The manis dead, come anigh." So she went up to him and dismounted, and theyboth together stood over the man, who was lying up against a big stonelike one at rest. How long he had lain there none knows but God; forin the saltness of the dry desert the flesh had dried on his boneswithout corrupting, and was as hardened leather. He was in full armourof a strange and ancient fashion, and his sword was girt to his side,neither was there any sign of a wound about him. Under a crag anighhim they found his horse, dead and dry like to himself; and a littleway over the brow of the ridge another horse in like case; and close byhim a woman whose raiment had not utterly perished, nor her hair; therewere gold rings on her arms, and her shoes were done with gold: she hada knife stuck in her breast, with her hand still clutching the handlethereof; so that it seemed that she had herself given herself death.

  Ralph and Ursula buried these two with the heaping of stones and wenttheir ways; but some two miles thence they came upon another deadman-at-arms, and near him an old man unweaponed, and they heaped stoneson them.

  Thereabout night overtook them, and it was dark, so they lay down inthe waste, and comforted each other, and slept two or three hours, butarose with the first glimmer of dawn, and mounted and rode forthonward, that they might the sooner be out of that deadly desert, forfear clung to their hearts.

  This day, forsooth, they found so many dead folk, that they might notstay to bury them, lest they themselves should come to lie therelacking burial. So they made all the way they might, and rode on somehours by starlight after the night was come, for it was clear and cold.So that at last they were so utterly wearied that they lay down amongstthose dead folk, and slept soundly.

  On the morrow morn Ralph awoke and saw Ursula sleeping peacefully as hedeemed, and he looked about on the dreary desert and its dead men andsaw no end to it, though they lay on the top of one of those stonybents; and he said softly to himself: "Will it end at all then?Surely all this people of the days gone by were Seekers of the Well aswe be; and have they belike turned back from somewhere further on, andmight not escape the desert despite of all? Shall we turn now: shallwe turn? surely we might get into the kindly wood from here."

  So he spake; but Ursula sat up (for she was not asleep) and said: "Theperils of the waste being abundant and exceeding hard to face, wouldnot the Sage or his books have told us of the most deadly?" Said Ralph:"Yet here are all these dead, and we were not told of them,nevertheless we have seen the token on the rocks oft-times yesterday,so we are yet in the road, unless all this hath been but a snare and abetrayal."

  She shook her head, and was silent a little; then she said: "Ralph, mylad, didst thou see this token (and she set hand to the beads about herneck) on any of those dead folk yesterday?" "Nay," said Ralph, "thoughsooth to say I looked for it." "And I in likewise," she said; "forindeed I had misgivings as the day grew old; but now I say, let us onin the faith of that token and the kindness of the Sage, and the loveof the Innocent People; yea, and thy luck, O lad of the green fieldsfar away, that hath brought thee unscathed so far from Upmeads."

  So they mounted and rode forth, and saw more and more of the dead folk;and ever and anon they looked to them to note if they wore the beadslike to them but saw none so dight. Then Ursula said: "Yea, why shouldthe Sage and the books have told us aught of these dead bodies, thatare but as the plenishing of the waste; like to the flowers that arecast down before the bier of a saint on a holy-day to be trodden underfoot by the churls and the vicars of the close. Forsooth had they beenalive now, with swords to smite withal, and hands to drag us intocaptivity, it had
been another matter: but against these I feel bold."

  Ralph sighed, and said: "Yea, but even if we die not in the waste, yetthis is piteous; so many lives passed away, so many hopes slain."

  "Yea," she said; "but do not folk die there in the world behind us? Ihave seen sights far worser than this at Utterbol, little while as Iwas there. Moreover I can note that this army of dead men has not comeall in one day or one year, but in a long, long while, by one and twoand three; for hast thou not noted that their raiment and wargear both,is of many fashions, and some much more perished than other, long asthings last in this Dry Waste? I say that men die as in the worldbeyond, but here we see them as they lie dead, and have lain for solong."

  He said: "I fear neither the Waste nor the dead men if thou fearestnot, beloved: but I lament for these poor souls."

  "And I also," said she; "therefore let us on, that we may come to thosewhose grief we may heal."