n a holy-day to be trodden under
foot by the churls and the vicars of the close. Forsooth had they been
alive now, with swords to smite withal, and hands to drag us into
captivity, 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, yet
this 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? I
have seen sights far worser than this at Utterbol, little while as I
was there. Moreover I can note that this army of dead men has not come
all in one day or one year, but in a long, long while, by one and two
and three; for hast thou not noted that their raiment and wargear both,
is of many fashions, and some much more perished than other, long as
things last in this Dry Waste? I say that men die as in the world
beyond, but here we see them as they lie dead, and have lain for so
long."

He said: "I fear neither the Waste nor the dead men if thou fearest
not, beloved: but I lament for these poor souls."

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

CHAPTER 18

They Come to the Dry Tree

Presently as they rode they had before them one of the greatest of
those land-waves, and they climbed it slowly, going afoot and leading
their horses; but when they were but a little way from the brow they
saw, over a gap thereof, something, as it were huge horns rising up
into the air beyond the crest of the ridge. So they marvelled, and
drew their swords, and held them still awhile, misdoubting if this were
perchance some terrible monster of the waste; but whereas the thing
moved not at all, they plucked up heart and fared on.

So came they to the brow and looked over it into a valley, about which
on all sides went the ridge, save where it was broken down into a
narrow pass on the further side, so that the said valley was like to
one of those theatres of the ancient Roman Folk, whereof are some to be
seen in certain lands. Neither did those desert benches lack their
sitters; for all down the sides of the valley sat or lay children of
men; some women, but most men-folk, of whom the more part were
weaponed, and some with their drawn swords in their hands. Whatever
semblance of moving was in them was when the eddying wind of the valley
stirred the rags of their raiment, or the long hair of the women. But
a very midmos