Howsoever, she had nought to do save to board her
ferry, and content its greedy soul with her blood,
and drive it with the spell-words. And thereafter,
when it was speeding on, and the twilight dusking
apace, she looked aback, and seemed to see the far-off
woodland in the northern ort, and the oak-clad ridge,
where she had met her wood-mother; and then it was
as if Habundia were saying to her: Meet again
we shall. And therewith straightway became life
sweeter unto her.
Deepened then the dusk, and became night, and she
floated on through it, and was asleep alone on the
bosom of the water.
Long before sunrise, in the very morn-dusk, she awoke
and found that her ferry had taken land again.
Little might she see what the said land was like;
so she sat patiently and abode the day in the boat;
but when day was come, little more was to see than
erst. For flat was the isle, and scarce raised
above the wash of the leeward ripple on a fair day;
nor was it either timbered or bushed or grassed, and,
so far as Birdalone might see, no one foot of it differed
in aught from another. Natheless she deemed
that she was bound to go ashore and seek out the adventure,
or spoil her errand else.
Out of the boat she stepped then, and found the earth
all paved of a middling gravel, and nought at all
growing there, not even the smallest of herbs; and
she stooped down and searched the gravel, and found
neither worm nor beetle therein, nay nor any one of
the sharp and slimy creatures which are wont in such
ground.
A little further she went, and yet a little further,
and no change there was in the land; and yet she went
on and found nothing; and she wended her ways southward
by the sun, and the day was windless.
At last she had gone a long way and had no sight of
water south of the isle, nor had she seen any hill,
nay, not so much as an ant-heap, whence she might
look further around; and it seemed to her that she
might go on for ever, and reach the heart of Nowhither
at last. Wherefore she thought she would turn
back and depart this ugly isle, and that no other
adventure abided her therein. And by now it was
high noon; and she turned about and took a few steps
on the backward road.
But even therewith it seemed as if the sun, which
heretofore had been shining brightly in the heavens,
went out as a burnt-down candle, and all was become
dull grey over head, as all under foot was a dull dun.
But Birdalone deemed she could follow a straight course
back again, and so walked on sturdily. Hour
after hour she went and stayed not, but saw before
her no glimpse of the northern shore, and no change
in the aspect of the ground about her.
