When they had come through the long town’s empty streets to the locked gate at the end, only fifteen were left. When they had broken down the gate there were only ten alive. Three more were killed as they went up the slope, and two as they passed near the terrible cavern. Fate let the rest go some way down the mountain upon the other side, and then took three of them. Camorak and Arleon alone were left alive. And night came down on the valley to which they had come, and was lit by flashes from the fatal mountain; and the two mourned for their comrades all night long. But when the morning came they remembered their war with Fate, and their old resolve to come to Carcassonne, and the voice of Arleon rose in a quavering song, and snatches of music from his old harp, and he stood up and marched with his face southwards as he had done for years, and behind him Camorak went. And when at last they climbed from the third valley, and stood on the hill’s summit in the golden sunlight of evening, their aged eyes saw only miles of forest and the birds going to roost. Their beards were white, and they had travelled very far and hard; it was the time with them when a man rests from labours and dreams in light sleep of the years that were and not of the years to come. Long they looked southwards; and the sun set over remoter forests, and glowworms lit their lamps, and the inspiration of Arleon rose and flew away for ever, to gladden, perhaps, the dreams of younger men. And Arleon said: “My King, I know no longer the way to Carcassonne.” And Camorak smiled, as the aged smile, with little cause for mirth, and said: “The years are going by us like huge birds, whom Doom and Destiny and the schemes of God have frightened up out of some old grey marsh. And it may well be that against these no warrior may avail, and that Fate has conquered us, and that our quest has failed.” And after this they were silent. Then they drew their swords, and side by side went down into the forest, still seeking for Carcassonne. I think they got not far; for there were deadly marshes in that forest, and gloom that outlasted the nights, and fearful beasts accustomed to its ways. Neither is there any legend, either in verse or among the songs of the people of the fields, of any having come to Carcassonne. _In Zaccarath_ “Come,” said the King in sacred Zaccarath, “and let our prophets prophesy before us.” A far-seen jewel of light was the holy palace, a wonder to the nomads on the plains. There was the King with all his under-lords, and the lesser kings that did him vassalage, and there were all his queens with all their jewels upon them. Who shall tell of the splendour in which they sat; of the thousand lights and the answering emeralds; of the dangerous beauty of that hoard of queens, or the flash of their laden necks?