Then, going to the pot, she took it from the fire, pouring its contents into an earthen basin, and, at the smell of them, for the first time for days Lysbeth felt hungry. Of what that stew was compounded she never learned, but she ate it to the last spoonful and was thankful, while Martha, seated on the ground beside her, watched her with delight, from time to time stretching out a long, thin hand to touch the brown hair that hung about her shoulders. “Come out and look,” said Martha when her guest had done eating. And she led her through the doorway of the hut. Lysbeth gazed round her, but in truth there was not much to see. The hut itself was hidden away in a little clump of swamp willows that grew upon a mound in the midst of a marshy plain, broken here and there by patches of reed and bulrushes. Walking across this plain for a hundred yards or so, they came to more reeds, and in them a boat hidden cunningly, for here was the water of the lake, and, not fifty paces away, what seemed to be the shore of an island. The Mare bade her get into the boat and rowed her across to this island, then round it to another, and thence to another and yet another. “Now tell me,” she said, “upon which of them is my stable built?” Lysbeth shook her head helplessly. “You cannot tell, no, nor any living man; I say that no man lives who could find it, save I myself, who know the path there by night or by day. Look,” and she pointed to the vast surface of the mere, “on this great sea are thousands of such islets, and before they find me the Spaniards must search them all, for here upon the lonely waters no spies or hound will help them.” Then she began to row again without even looking round, and presently they were in the clump of reeds from which they had started. “I must be going home,” faltered Lysbeth. “No,” answered Martha, “it is too late, you have slept long. Look, the sun is westering fast, this night you must stop with me. Oh! do not be afraid, my fare is rough, but it is sweet and fresh and plenty; fish from the mere as much as you will, for who can catch them better than I? And water-fowl that I snare, yes, and their eggs; moreover, dried flesh and bacon which I get from the mainland, for there I have friends whom sometimes I meet at night.” So Lysbeth yielded, for the great peace of this lake pleased her. Oh! after all that she had gone through it was like heaven to watch the sun sinking towards the quiet water, to hear the wild-fowl call, to see the fish leap and the halcyons flash by, and above all to be sure that by nothing short of a miracle could this divine silence, broken only by Nature’s voices, be defiled with the sound of the hated accents of the man who had ruined and betrayed her. Yes, she was weary, and a strange unaccustomed languor crept over her; she would rest there this night also.