into it that day, for
they were minded to rest them after the weariness of the wilderness:
they feasted on a hare which Ralph shot, and made a big fire to keep
off evil beasts, but none came nigh them, though they heard the voices
of certain beasts as the night grew still. To be short, they slept far
into the morrow's morn, and then, being refreshed, and their horses
also, they rode strongly all day, and found the wood to be not very
great; for before sunset they were come to its outskirts, and the
mountains lay before them. These were but little like to that huge
wall they had passed through on their way to Chestnut-dale, being
rather great hills than mountains, grass-grown, and at their feet
somewhat wooded, and by seeming not over hard to pass over.

The next day they entered them by a pass marked with the token, which
led them about by a winding way till they were on the side of the
biggest fell of all; so there they rested that night in a fair little
hollow or dell in the mountain-side. There in the stillness of the
night both Ursula, as well as Ralph, heard that roaring of a great
water, and they said to each other that it must be the voice of the
Sea, and they rejoiced thereat, for they had learned by the Sage and
his books that they must needs come to the verge of the Ocean-Sea,
which girdles the earth about. So they arose betimes on the morrow,
and set to work to climb the mountain, going mostly a-foot; and the way
was long, but not craggy or exceeding steep, so that in five hours'
time they were at the mountain-top, and coming over the brow beheld
beneath them fair green slopes besprinkled with trees, and beyond them,
some three or four miles away, the blue landless sea and on either hand
of them was the sea also, so that they were nigh-hand at the ending of
a great ness, and there was naught beyond it; and naught to do if they
missed the Well, but to turn back by the way they had come.

Now when they saw this they were exceedingly moved and they looked on
one another, and each saw that the other was pale, with glistening
eyes, since they were to come to the very point of their doom, and that
it should be seen whether there were no such thing as the Well in all
the earth, but that they had been chasing a fair-hued cloud; or else
their Quest should be achieved and they should have the world before
them, and they happy and mighty, and of great worship amidst all men.

Little they tarried, but gat them down