I have some good friends who will go with me awhile.
But thou, Lady, hast thou heard aught?"
"Naught of the damsel," she said. "But there is something else.
As Clement told me, thou seekest the Well at the World's End,
and through Utterness and by Utterbol is a way whereby folk seek thither.
Mayst thou find it, and may it profit thee more than it did my
kinsman of old, who first raised up Goldburg in the wilderness.
Whereas for him was naught but strife and confusion, till he was
slain in a quarrel, wherein to fail was to fail, and to win the day
was to win shame and misery."
She looked on him sweetly and said: "Thou art nowise such as he;
and if thou drink of the Well, thou wilt go back to Upmeads,
and thy father and mother, and thine own folk and thine home.
But now here is the letter which thou shalt give to the Lord
of Utterbol if thou meet him; and mayhappen he is naught so evil
a man as the tale of him runs."
She gave him the letter into his hands, and spake again:
"And now I have this to say to thee, if anything go amiss with thee,
and thou be nigh enough to seek to me, come hither, and then,
in whatso plight thou mayst be, or whatsoever deed thou mayst
have done, here will be the open door for thee and the welcome
of a friend."
Her voice shook a little as she spake, and she was silent again,
mastering her trouble. Then she said: "At last I must
say this to thee, that there may no lie be between us.
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