and partly for grief. For, with all torment of
sorrow, she kept turning over and over in her mind
whether her friends had yet come home to the Castle
of the Quest, and whether they would go seek her to
deliver her. And such shame took hold of her
when she thought of their grief and confusion of soul
when they should come home and find her gone, that
she set her mind to asking if it had not been better
had she never met them. Yet in good sooth her
mind would not shape the thought, howsoever she bade
it.
CHAPTER XIII. NOW THEY REST FOR THE NIGHT IN THE STRAIT PASS
At last, when they had been going a long while, it
might be some six hours, and it had long been night
in the world without, but moon-lit, and they had rested
but seldom, and then but for short whiles, the knight
drew rein and spake to Birdalone, and asked her was
she not weary. O yea, she said; I was at point
to pray thee suffer me to get off and lie down on
the bare rock. To say sooth, I am now too weary
to think of any peril, or what thou art, or whither
we be going. He said: By my deeming we
be now half through this mountain highway, and belike
there is little peril in our resting; for I think not
that any one of them knoweth of this pass, or would
dare it if he did; and they doubtless came into the
dale by the upper pass, which is strait enough, but
light and open.
As he spoke, Birdalone bowed forward on her horse’s
neck, and would have fallen but that he stayed her.
Then he lifted her off her horse, and laid her down
in the seemliest place he might find; and the pass
there was much widened, and such light as there was
in the outer world came down freely into it, though
it were but of the moon and the stars; and the ground
was rather sandy than rocky. So he dight Birdalone’s
bed as well as he might, and did off his surcoat and
laid it over her; and then stood aloof, and gazed on
her; and he muttered: It is an evil chance;
yet the pleasure of it, the pleasure of it!
Yea, said he again, she might well be wearied; I myself
am ready to drop, and I am not the least tough of
the band. And therewith he laid him down on
the further side of the pass, and fell asleep straightway.
CHAPTER XIV. THE BLACK KNIGHT TELLS THE TRUTH OF HIMSELF
When the morning was come down into the straitness
of their secret road, Birdalone opened her eyes and
saw the Black Knight busy over dighting their horses:
so she arose and thrust her grief back into her heart,
and gave her fellow-farer the sele of the day, and
he brought her victual, and they ate a morsel, and
gat to horse thereafter and departed; and the way
became smoother, and it was lighter overhead everywhere
now, and the rocks never again met overhead athwart
the way; and it seemed to Birdalone that now they
were wending somewhat downward.
The knight was courteous unto Birdalone, and no longer
for the present thrust his love upon her, so that
now she had some solace of his fellowship, though
he was but few-spoken to her.
