that only three tracks approached our location;
that by which we had reached it up the slope of the mountain, and one
along the slope in each direction. About mid-afternoon he returned up the
track by which we had come, stating that the trail southwards, about a
league south of us, joined the road along which we had travelled till
Hylactor diverted us: he had made the circuit along the length of the
league or more of trail, back along the road by which we had travelled and
up the track by which Hylactor had led us; he had met no living thing,
save a hare or two, too fleet for Hylactor to catch; he had caught sight
of no town, village or farmstead, even afar. He had made sure that the
mules had left the clearing by the track he had followed out of it, so
that, probably, the children's father had gone south. Exploring the other
trail he had put off till the next day.

Next day he found that the other track joined the lower road only about
half a league to northeastwards. He turned back along the lower road and
returned by the uphill track, as he had done the day before to the south.
He met no one and saw no town, village or farmstead anywhere in sight, and
at some places he could see far to the eastward.

We discussed his proposal to go off alone, with a wallet of food and try
to steal an axe. Plainly he would have to go far. It would be easy enough
to sneak back to the farm where we had spent our last night before meeting
Hylactor, but we both felt bound by the obligation of our hospitable
entertainment there: though nameless fugitives we were still under the
spell of the standards of our former lives. We admitted to each other that
he might steal an axe from that farm and I condone the knavery and avail
myself of its proceeds; but we agreed that such baseness must be stooped
to only as a desperate last resort. He was to set off northwards next day.

That night the woman, who had been inert and manageable, in a half-stupor,
became violently delirious and for a time it took all the strength
Agathemer and I jointly possessed to hold her in bed. Prima and Secunda,
waked by her shrieks, were in a pitiable panic, Secunda merely dazed and
aghast, Prima begging us not to kill her mother, fancying we were
attacking her. We managed to convince the child that we were doing our
best and what was best for her mother and that her mother's ravings would
quiet and that she might regain her reason and health. I induced both
children to