The sun poured slanting rays, making the world ruddy. The knights, having rested and refreshed themselves, would get to horse, press on so as to reach the host before curfew. The ring beneath the tinted trees broke. The squires hastened, brought the horses from the deeper wood. All mounted, turned toward the south and Montmaure. “Farewell, Master Jongleur, Golden-Voice!” cried the eldest knight. “Come one day to the castles of Aquitaine!” Another flung him silver further than had yet been given.—They were gone. Almost instantly they must round a hill—the sight of them failed, the earth between smothered the sound of their horses’ going, and of their own voices. Ere the sun dipped the solitude was again solitude. Garin joined the princess where she sat among the stones. She sat with her chin in her hands, watching the great orb and all the scape of clouds. “Did they tell you where Richard is to be found?” “He is to be found at Excideuil. I spoke with a seeing man, and this is what he said.” He repeated what had been said. “So!” said the princess. “Let us be going.” They walked until the red dusk had given way to brown dusk and darkness was close at hand. She spoke only once, and then she said, “You also are a seeing man, Elias the Jongleur!” A ruined wayside shrine appeared before them, topping a hill, clear against the pale, cold, remote purples and greens of the west. Their path mounted to it; they found all about it quiet and lonely. They talked until the sky was filled with stars, then they wrapped themselves in their mantles and slept, stretched upon the yet warm earth. CHAPTER XXIV THE ABBEY OF THE FOUNTAIN MORNING broke. They rose and travelled on. This day they passed definitely from the dragon’s present reach, though yet they were in lands of Roche-de-Frêne, done into ruin by him, poisoned by his breath. Adventures they had, perils and escapes. These were approached, endured, passed. At night they came to a hermit’s cell where was no hermit, but on a stone hearth wood ready for firing. They closed the door, struck flint and steel, had presently a flame that reddened the low and narrow walls and gave the two, tired and cold, much comfort. The hermit’s cupboard was found, and in it dried fruit and pease and a pan or two for cooking. Without the cell was water, a bubbling spring among moss and fern.