and said: Yesterday and the day before we searched the open land and
found nought; now to-day let us search the house, and if we find
nought, then at least it shall lie behind us. We yeasaid it, and
presently went back, and from chamber to chamber, and all was fair
and goodly as might be, and we marvelled what would betide to it when
the witch was undone and her sorcery come to an end.

To the Wailing Tower we came, and up the stairs, and found the door
open of the prison-chamber, and all there as thou hast told us,
Birdalone; only we opened the great coffer, whence thou didst refrain
thee, and found it full of hideous gear truly, as fetters and chains,
and whips and rods, and evil tools of the tormentors, and cursed it
all and came away; and Arthur said: Lo you, this stupid one! How
eager is she to bid us what to do, and to tell us that our ladies are
not in this evil house, since she leaveth all open to us. Yet we
went about the house without, and counted the windows heedfully to
see that we had missed no chamber, and found nought amiss; and then
we went in again and sought as low down as we might, to see if
perchance some dungeon there were underground, but found nought save
a very goodly undercroft below the great hall, which was little less
fair than that which was above it. So came the evening and the
banquet, and the end of that day; but the witch-wife led Arthur by
the hand to the board, and afterwards to the chamber ere we slept.

On the fourth day and the fifth it was no otherwise than erst; and
when I fared to bed I felt confused in my head and sick of heart.

The night of the next day (the sixth), as we went to our chambers,
and the witch-wife and Arthur hand-in-hand, she stayed him a while,
and spake eagerly to him in a soft voice; and as he came up to me