with them
in everlasting peace and love. Houses are there which you need only to
enter and call your own. And when you are hungry you have only to speak,
and immediately all that you desire to eat will appear on the tables. And
when you are tired, soft beds will rise up to receive you. And clothes
will be spread before you--not stiff and uncomfortable robes like those
you carry in your pack, but soft garments suited to that land of
comfort."

Most of the travellers believed the witch and turned into the by-path.
But, alas! it was soon worse for them than it had been on the road; for
they were led, not to a garden, but into a great sandy desert, where
nothing grew and no rain or dew ever fell. And somehow they could find no
way out of the desert, but wandered to and fro in the endless fields of
dust, while the hot sun beat upon their heads and their hearts failed them
for hunger and thirst.

But now and then a wary traveller did not believe the witch and laughed at
her tears and soft voice. And then, unless he got away very quick,
something dreadful happened to him. The witch suddenly changed into a huge
monster with a hundred flaming eyes, and a hundred mouths with which she
raved and bellowed, and a hundred long arms that coiled about like
serpents. She was so terrible that most men who saw her in her true form
fell down fainting at her feet; and these she lifted up and threw into
deep dark holes, hidden from the road, where the poor wretches soon died
of sheer loneliness.

And now comes the heart of the story, dear Jack, if you are not too tired
to read to the end.

One day a knight and a lady came riding up the road. The knight was not
very strong, nor was his armour much to look at,--just an ordinary knight,
but he was brave, and there was a mighty determination in his heart to
slay the false, wicked witch whose deeds he had heard of. And as he rode
he turned often to look into his lady's eyes, and always he seemed to
drink new courage from those clear pools, as a thirsty man drinks
refreshment from a well of cool water, for the lady was young and passing
fair--as fair as Miss Jessica, and she, you know, is the loveliest woman
in all the world. And so at last they came to where the witch was sitting
and weeping. Without a word the knight drew his sword and rushed upon her.
Of course she changed instantly to the monster with the hundred eyes and
mouths and arms. The air was filled with the fire from her eyes and