is bones to bleach beside the great rock.

Then he looked, and saw the bear coming towards him, and it carried a
roebuck, freshly slain, which it brought and laid at Sir Owen's feet.
The knight sprang up with a glad cry, and struck fire with his flint,
and the bear brought dried sticks, and soon a fire was blazing, and
juicy collops were spluttering on skewers before the fire.

When Sir Owen had finished eating, the bear seemed to wish him to
follow him, and the bear led him to a brook in a little green patch,
and there the knight quenched his thirst.

By now it was twilight again, and Sir Owen made up the fire and
prepared himself to slumber; and the bear lay down beside him and
blinked at the fire like a great dog.

The knight saw the sun far in the west dip beneath a cloud, and a cold
wind blew across the waste. And then he heard a sigh from somewhere
behind him, and then another and again a third. And the sound seemed to
come from within the towering stone.

He cried out, 'If thou art a mortal, speak to me! But if thou art some
evil thing of this waste, avaunt thee!'

A voice, soft and sad, replied, 'A mortal I am indeed, but soon shall I
be dead, and as cold as the stone in which I am imprisoned, unless one
man help me.'

The stone was so thick that the voices of both were muffled, so that
neither recognised the other.

Sir Owen asked who it was who spoke to him.

'I am Elined, handmaiden to the Lady of the Fountain,' was the reply.

'Alas! alas!' cried Sir Owen. 'Then if thou art in so sore a pass, thou
who wouldst guard my lady till thy death, surely my dear lady is in a
worse pass? I am Owen, who won her in the jousts, and by evil fortune
left her for more than a night and a day, and never have I been able to
find my way back to my beloved lady. Tell me, damsel, what evil hath
befallen her, and how I may avenge it instantly?'

'Glad I am, Sir Owen,' cried the maiden joyfully, 'to hear thou art
still in life, and that thou wert not faithless, as the evil Sir Dewin
said thou wert. 'Twas his evil magic that changed the landscape as thou
didst ride, and so hid the way from thee. Naught evil hath my lady
suffered yet, nor never will now if thou canst save me this night. But
he hath changed my brother, Decet of the Mound, into some monstrous
shape, and me he hath chained within this stone. Yet for seventy-seven
days my magic kept him from doing further ill to my lady and me; and
that space ends this midni