t of this dreary theatre rose up a huge and monstrous
tree, whose topmost branches were even the horns which they had seen
from below the hill's brow. Leafless was that tree and lacking of
twigs, and its bole upheld but some fifty of great limbs, and as they
looked on it, they doubted whether it were not made by men's hands
rather than grown up out of the earth. All round about the roots of it
was a pool of clear water, that cast back the image of the valley-side
and the bright sky of the desert, as though it had been a mirror of
burnished steel. The limbs of that tree were all behung with blazoned
shields and knight's helms, and swords, and spears, and axes, and
hawberks; and it rose up into the air some hundred feet above the flat
of the valley.

For a while they looked down silently on to this marvel then from both
their lips at once came the cry THE DRY TREE. Then Ralph thrust his
sword back into his sheath and said: "Meseems I must needs go down
amongst them; there is naught to do us harm here; for all these are
dead like the others that we saw."

Ursula turned to him with burning cheeks and sparkling eyes, and said
eagerly: "Yea, yea, let us go down, else might we chance to miss
something that we ought to wot of."

Therewith she also sheathed her sword, and they went both of them down
together, and that easily; for as aforesaid the slope was as if it had
been cut into steps for their feet. And as they passed by the dead
folk, for whom they had often to turn aside, they noted that each of
the dead leathery faces was drawn up in a grin as though they had died
in pain, and yet beguiled, so that all those visages looked somewhat
alike, as though they had come from the workshop of one craftsman.

At last Ralph and Ursula stood on the level ground underneath the Tree,
and they looked up at the branches, and down to the water at their
feet; and now it seemed to them as though the Tree had verily growth in
it, for they beheld its roots, that they went out from the mound or
islet of earth into the water, and spread abroad therein, and seemed to
waver about. So they walked around the Tree, and looked up at the
shields that hung on its branches, but saw no blazon that they knew,
though they were many and diverse; and the armour also and weapons were
very diverse of fashion.

Now when they were come back again to the place where they had first
stayed, Ralph said: "I thirst, and so belike dost thou; and here is
w