"
So he spake; but Ursula sat up (for she was not asleep) and said:
"The perils of the waste being abundant and exceeding hard to face,
would not the Sage or his books have told us of the most deadly?"
Said Ralph: "Yet here are all these dead, and we were not told of them,
nevertheless we have seen the token on the rocks oft-times yesterday,
so we are yet in the road, unless all this hath been but a snare
and a betrayal."
She shook her head, and was silent a little; then she said:
"Ralph, my lad, didst thou see this token (and she set hand to
the beads about her neck) on any of those dead folk yesterday?"
"Nay," said Ralph, "though sooth to say I looked for it."
"And I in likewise," she said; "for indeed I had misgivings
as the day grew old; but now I say, let us on in the faith
of that token and the kindness of the Sage, and the love of
the Innocent People; yea, and thy luck, O lad of the green fields
far away, that hath brought thee unscathed so far from Upmeads."
So they mounted and rode forth, and saw more and more of the dead folk;
and ever and anon they looked to them to note if they wore
the beads like to them but saw none so dight. Then Ursula said:
"Yea, why should the Sage and the books have told us aught of these
dead bodies, that are but as the plenishing of the waste; like to
the flowers that are cast down before the bier of a saint on a holy-day
to be trodden under foot by the churls and the vicars of the close.
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