his hand upon my shoulder wondrous kindly, and raised me up by the
arm, and led me to a seat so gently that for the moment I forgot that I
distrusted him. Then he spoke of studies, and brought down some great
tomes, excellently well writ and pictured in French scriptoria, and
turning from them to his table he showed me a wondrous box, which
looking through, as I held it up, I saw as it were the far off bay draw
near to mine eyes, so that I could see men walk clear where I saw but
shapes before. And with surprise I well-nigh dropped it from my hands.
He took it from me, and told me I had seen what none had seen in the
earth before but he alone.

And the thought entering into my mind that here was something more than
human, he seemed to guess it, and said with a smile that was hard and
keen--

"Nor is there wizardry therein, save the wizardry of a lonely man, that
devises new solace for his loneliness."

A pasty was ere long set before us and a flask of wine, whereof we both
partook.

"Say not," said he, "that my lord of Rouen sends his guests hungry
away."

So we ate together. And after eating, as the sun was already stealing
down the western sky, he bade me farewell, and pressed a little ring
upon my finger as I left him, bidding me not forget to see him again ere
I left for the wars, and at any time he said he would stand my friend,
with a greater air of power, it struck me, than one could show who knew
no other future than more long years of exile, such as he now lived in
our small isle.

Now, as I turned from the drawbridge at the moat-house of Blanchelande
to go homewards the remembrance came to me of those men that I guessed
were pirates digging their storehouse in mother earth in the midst of
the wood. And thinking on it, though I feared them not, I had no taste
to return to the vale that way. So, instead, I followed the path rugged
and uneven as it was, along the side of the cliff to the northward.
First along the gorge of the Bay of Saints I went by the side of the
stream that ran singing from Blanchelande, and then I cut straight up
the cliff amid the heather, and so came into sight of Moulin Huet, where
an ugly craft, that I liked not the sight of lay at anchor, right under
the nose of Jerbourg Castle, wherein our abbot had a small corps of men,
even as at the Vale. I stood a moment looking down on her riding deep in
the sky-blue water, and presently I saw a boat put out from shore with
men on board th