d went all day,
and saw no living thing, and not a blade of grass or a trickle of water:
nought save the wan rocks under the sun; and though they trusted in their
road that it led them aright, they saw no other glimpse of the Glittering
Plain, because there rose a great ridge like a wall on the north side,
and they went as it were down along a trench of the rocks, albeit it was
whiles broken across by ghylls, and knolls, and reefs.

So at sunset they rested and ate their victual, for they were very weary;
and thereafter they lay down, and slept as soundly as if they were in the
best of the halls of men. On the morrow betimes they arose soberly and
went their ways with few words, and, as they deemed, the path still led
them onward. And now the great ridge on the north rose steeper and
steeper, and their crossing it seemed not to be thought of; but their
half-blind track failed them not. They rested at even, and ate and drank
what little they had left, save a mouthful or two of wine, and then went
on again by the light of the moon, which was so bright that they still
saw their way. And it happened to Hallblithe, as mostly it does with men
very travel-worn, that he went on and on scarce remembering where he was,
or who his fellows were, or that he had any fellows.

So at midnight they lay down in the wilderness again, hungry and weary.
They rose at dawn and went forward with waning hope: for now the mountain
ridge on the north was close to their path, rising up along a sheer wall
of pale stone over which nothing might go save the fowl flying; so that
at first on that morning they looked for nothing save to lay their bones
in that grievous desert where no man should find them.

But, as beset with famine, they fared on heavily down the narrow track,
there came a hoarse cry from Hallblithe's dry throat and it was as if his
cry had been answered by another like to his; and the seekers turned and
beheld him pointing to the cliff-side, and lo! half-way up the pale sun-
litten crag stood two ravens in a cranny of the stone, flapping their
wings and croaking, with thrusting forth and twisting of their heads; and
presently they came floating on the thin pure air high up over the heads
of the wayfarers, croaking for the pleasure of the meeting, as though
they laughed thereat.

Then rose the heart of Hallblithe, and he smote his palms together, and
fell to singing an old song of his people, amidst the rocks whereas few
men had