alway in the heart that did harken unto those
monstrous voices, for you do know my tale.

And there came in a moment, a dreadful screaming out in the night, and
the screaming did be the screaming of a young maid that doth be slain
very brutal. And my heart sickened, because of Mine Own; but my spirit
did swell with a strange and utter anger, as that it should burst my
body. And the Maid to my side broke into an utter sobbing.

And the screaming of the maid afar off in the dark did end very sudden;
but in a moment there did be other screamings in diverse places, and the
hoarse shoutings of the great men and the thudding of mighty feet that
ran this way and that, a-chase.

And the cryings of the humans came nearer, and the thuddings of the
great feet. And, in verity, in a little minute, it did seem unto me that
the sounds did be right upon the hollow; and I crept forward, and peered
out. And I felt the night to be full of people running; and immediately
there passed by the hollow a clustering of humans that ran ever, and
screamed and gasped and wept, panting, as they ran. And the shining of
the fire-hole made them plain seen and clear, and they did be both men
and women, and were but in rags or utter naked, and all torn by the
rocks and the bushes, and did seem, indeed, as that they had been wild
things that did go by so swift and lost.

And mine heart troubled me with the pain and longing that it did know;
so that I had gone in a moment after those people, but that I should
leave Mine Own and put her to peril. And even while that I felt so utter
in this thing, there came a great thudding of monstrous feet; and there
ran four great men out of the night, and went past the hollow very
quick. And three did be dull coloured and seeming much haired and
brutish; but the other did be an horrid white, and livid-blotched; so
that it did seem to my spirit that there went by, a thing that did be a
very man-monster filled of unwholesome life. And surely they did be gone
from out of the shine of the fire, in one moment, as we do say; and
again into the night to their dreadful chasing.

And when the thudding of their feet had gone a long way off over the
Land, I heard them bellowing, and afterward a far away screaming, that
did have a death note in it; and I knew that those dreadful brute-men
did be taking the life from some poor wild humans; and afterward there
did be the silence again.

And, surely, it did come to me with a fie