ee, for he is dead. Thus hath thy wish been accomplished; for this
was the great champion and duke of the men of the Dry Tree. Indeed it
is a pity of him that he is dead, for as terrible as he was to his
foes, he was no ill man."

Spake Richard: "Now is the riddle areded of the wild-man and the
mighty giant that haunted these passes. We have played together or
now, in days long past, he and I; and ever he came to his above. He
was a wise man and a prudent that he should have become a wild-man. It
is great pity of him."

But Ralph took his knight's cloak of red scarlet, and they lapped the
wild-man therein, who had once been a champion beworshipped. But first
Ursula sheared his hair and his beard, till the face of him came back
again, grave, and somewhat mocking, as Ralph remembered it, time was.
Then they bore him in the four corners across the stream, and up on to
the lawn before the cliff; and Richard and the Sage bore him into the
cave, and laid him down there beside the howe which Ralph had erewhile
heaped over the Lady; and now over him also they heaped stones.

Meanwhile Ursula knelt at the mouth of the cave and wept; but Ralph
turned him about and stood on the edge of the bank, and looked over the
ripple of the stream on to the valley, where the moon was now beginning
to cast shadows, till those two came out of the cave for the last time.
Then Ralph turned to Ursula and raised her up and kissed her, and they
went down all of them from that place of death and ill-hap, and gat to
horse on the other side of the stream, and rode three miles further on
by the glimmer of the moon, and lay down to rest amongst the bushes of
the waste, with few words spoken between them.

CHAPTER 16

They Come to the Castle of Abundance Once More

When they rode on next morning Ralph was few-spoken, and seemed to heed
little so long as they made good speed on the way: most of the talk was
betwixt Richard and the Sage, Ralph but putting in a word when it would
have seemed churlish to forbear.

So they went their ways through the wood till by then the sun was well
westering they came out at the Water of the Oak, and Richard drew rein
there, and spake: "Here is a fair place for a summer night's lodging,
and I would warrant both good knight and fair lady have lain here
aforetime, and wished the dark longer: shall we not rest here?"

Ralph stared at him astonished, and then anger grew in his face for a
little, because,