a rich land betwixt him and Goldburg, that it
might sustain an host big enough to deal with him?"

"But is not this his land?" said Ralph.

Said the captain: "Nay, and also yea. None shall dwell in it save as
he willeth, and they shall pay him tribute, be it never so little. Yet
some there are of them, who are to him as the hounds be to the hunter,
and these same he even wageth, so that if aught rare and goodly cometh
their way they shall bring it to his hands; as thou thyself knowest to
thy cost."

"Yea," said Ralph smiling, "and is Morfinn the Unmanned one of these
curs?" "Yea," said the captain, with a grin, "and one of the richest of
them, in despite of his fiddle and minstrel's gear, and his lack of
manhood: for he is one of the cunningest of men. But my Lord unmanned
him for some good reason."

Ralph kept silence and while and then said: "Why doth the Goldburg
folk suffer all this felony, robbery and confusion, so near their
borders, and the land debateable?"

Said the captain, and again he grinned: "Passing for thy hard words,
sir knight, why dost thou suffer me to lead thee along whither thou
wouldest not?"

"Because I cannot help myself," said Ralph.

Said the captain: "Even so it is with the Goldburg folk: if they raise
hand against some of these strong-thieves or man-stealers, he has but
to send the war-arrow round about these deserts, as ye deem them, and
he will presently have as rough a company of carles for his fellows as
need be, say ten hundred of them. And the Goldburg folk are not very
handy at a fray without their walls. Forsooth within them it is
another matter, and beside not even our Lord of Utterbol would see
Goldburg broken down, no, not for all that he might win there."

"Is it deemed a holy place in the land, then?" said Ralph.

"I wot not the meaning of holy," said the other: "but all we deem that
when Goldburg shall fall, the world shall change, so that living
therein shall be hard to them that have not drunk of the water of the
Well at the World's End."

Ralph was silent a while and eyed the captain curiously: then he said:
"Have the Goldburgers so drunk?" Said the captain: "Nay, nay; but the
word goes that under each tower of Goldburg lieth a youth and a maiden
that have drunk of the water, and might not die save by point and edge."

Then was Ralph silent again, for once more he fell pondering the matter
if he had been led away to be offered as a blood offering to