afterwards he said: To-night I have escaped it, but there will not
be escape for long. From what? said I. He said: From bedding her;
for now it has come to this, that presently we must slay her at once
and have no knowledge of our sweetlings, or I must do her will.

In such wise passed four more days, and it was the twelfth morning of
our sojourn there, and we went forth on our search of every mead and
every covert of the isle, and all day we found nought to our purpose;
but as it grew toward sunset, and there grew great clouds in the
eastern ort, piled up and copper-coloured, we came over a bent on to
a little green dale watered by a clear brook, and as we looked down
into it we saw something shine amongst its trees; so we hastened
toward that gleam, and lo, amidst the dale, with the brook running
through it, a strange garth we saw. For there was a pavilion done of
timber and board, and gaily painted and gilded, and out from that
house was, as it were, a great cage of thin gilded bars, both walls
and roof, just so wide apart as no one full-grown, carl or quean,
could thrust through.

Thitherward then ran we, shouting, for we saw at once that in the
said cage were three women whose aspect was that of our sweetlings,
and presently we were standing by the said herse, reaching our hands
out to them to come to us and tell us their tale, and that we would
deliver them. But they stood together in the midst of the said cage,
and though they gazed piteously on us thence, and reached out their
hands to us, they neither spake nor came to the herse to us; so we
deemed that they were bewitched, and our joy was dashed.

Then we went all about the cage and the pavilion to find ingate, and
found it not; and then the three of us together strove with the bars