the dream done and the vision departed; and Hallblithe sat
up full of anguish and longing; and he looked about him over the dreary
land, and it was somewhat light and the sky was grown grey and cloudy,
and he deemed that the dawn was come. So he leapt to his feet and
stooped down over Fox, and took him by the shoulder, and shook him and
said: "Faring-fellow, awake! the dawn is come, and we have much to do."

Fox sat up and growled like a dog, and rubbed his eyes and looked about
him and said: "Thou hast waked me for nought: it is the false dawn of the
moon that shineth now behind the clouds and casteth no shadow; it is but
an hour after midnight. Go to sleep again, and let me be, else will I
not be a guide to thee when the day comes." And he lay down and was
asleep at once. Then Hallblithe went and lay down again full of sorrow:
Yet so weary was he that he presently fell asleep, and dreamed no more.

CHAPTER VI: OF A DWELLING OF MAN ON THE ISLE OF RANSOM

When he awoke again the sun shone on him, and the morning was calm and
windless. He sat up and looked about him, but could see no signs of Fox
save the lair wherein he had lain. So he arose to his feet and sought
for him about the crannies of the rocks, and found him not; and he
shouted for him, and had no answer. Then he said, "Belike he has gone
down to the boat to put a thing in, or take a thing out." So he went his
ways to the stair down into the water-cave, and he called on Fox from the
top of the stair, and had no answer.

So he went down that long stair with a misgiving in his heart, and when
he came to the last step there was neither man nor boat, nor aught else
save the water and the living rock. Then was he exceeding wroth, for he
knew that he had been beguiled, and he was in an evil case, left alone on
an Isle that he knew not, a waste and desolate land, where it seemed most
like he should die of famine.

He wasted no breath or might now in crying out for Fox, or seeking him;
for he said to himself: "I might well have known that he was false and a
liar, whereas he could scarce refrain his joy at my folly and his guile.
Now is it for me to strive for life against death."

Then he turned and went slowly up the stair, and came out on to the open
face of that Isle, and he saw that it was waste indeed, and dreadful: a
wilderness of black sand and stones and ice-borne rocks, with here and
there a little grass growing in the hollows, and here