s as surety.

Two more days Sir Owen stayed at the manor to see that these things
were duly performed, and then he took his departure.

'I would that you could stay with us,' said the lady, who was sweet and
gentle, with kindly eyes and a soft voice.

'Lady, I may not,' said Sir Owen. 'I seek my dear wife and her
dominions, and have been seeking them these many months. But I fear me
some evil necromancy hath been reared against me, so that I may not
find her again, and she must be in much sorrow and misery in my
absence. And if I never see my lady in life again, yet must I seek for
her until I die.'

'What is the name of your lady and of her dominions?' asked the lady.

'She is the Lady Carol, Countess of the Fountain,' answered Owen. 'Do
you know aught of her, and in which direction her lands lie?'

The lady caused inquiries to be made, and her foresters said that the
lady's lands of the fountain lay fifteen leagues beyond the mountains,
and that his way lay through the Wisht Wood, the Dead Valley, and the
Hill of the Tower of Stone, and only a knight of great valour could
hope to win through these places, which were the haunt of warlocks,
wizards, and trolls, and full of magic, both black and white.

Joyously Sir Owen mounted his horse, glad to learn that now he might
hope to find his countess again, and the Lady of the Moors wished him
Godspeed, and looked after him long and earnestly till he disappeared
into a forest.

He journeyed three days through the Wisht Wood, and many were the
dreadful things he saw and heard there, and great eyes, green and black
and yellow, peered at him from the bushes as he sat over his fire at
night. But he clasped the blue stone which the troll Decet had given
him, and naught could hurt him.

On the fourth day he descended into the Dead Valley. And here he was
like to die, for the air was so thick, and filled with the poison of
witches who haunted there at night, that if he had not ridden fiercely
and fast through its deathly vapours, he could not have reached the
slopes of the Hill of the Tower of Stone, where the air was pure and
blew out of the clean sky.

Long and toilsome and exceedingly steep was the way up the side of the
mountain, and many times Sir Owen thought he would have to sink down
for sheer weariness. And it was dark night before he reached level
ground, and he could not see where he was or what place he was in.

But having said his prayers, fed his horse, a