hey should be bewildered in a maze of little hills and
dales leading no whither.

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

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

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

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

But when he had come nigher, he turned and cried out to her: "The man
is dead, come anigh." So she went up to him and dismounted, and they
both together stood over the man, who was lying up against a big stone
like one at rest. How long he had lain there none knows but God; for
in the saltness of the dry desert the flesh had dried on his bones
without corrupting, and was as hardened leather. He was in full armour
of 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 anigh
him they found his horse, dead and dry like to himself; and a little
way over the brow of the ridge another horse in like case; and close by
him a woman whose raiment had not utterly perished, nor her hair; there
were gold rings on her arms, and her shoes were done with gold: she had
a knife stuck in her breast, with her hand still clutching the handle
thereof; so that it seemed that she had herself given herself death.

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

Thereabout night overtook them, and it was dark, so they lay down in
the waste, and comforted each other, and slept two or three hours, but
arose with