Garin and those behind him rode on. Immediately the way that once had been good became bad. A bridge had spanned a swift stream, but the bridge was destroyed. A mill had stood near, but the mill was burned. There seemed no folk. They rode by trampled and blackened fields where no harvest sickles would come this year. The poppies looked like blood. Here, in a dip in the land, was what had been a village, and upon a low hill a heap of stones that had been castle or armed manor-house. There were yet fearful odours. They rode by a tree on which were hanged ten men, and a place where women and children, all crouched together, had been slain. Here were more blackened fields, splashed with poppies. The sun, now riding high, sent into every corner a searching light. Garin and his men, leaving the ruin, rode through a great forest. They rode cautiously, keeping a lookout, neither singing nor laughing nor talking loudly. But the forest slept on either hand, and there was nothing heard but the hoofs of their horses, the song of birds, and the whirr of insects. This forest had been known to Garin the squire. He was going now toward Raimbaut’s keep. Around were the wide-branching trees, the birds flew before them, the startled hare ran, the deer plunged aside into the deeper brakes, but they met with no human life. Travelling so, they came to a broken country, wooded hills, grey falls of cliff, streams that brawled over stony beds. Garin looked from side to side, recognizing ancient landmarks. But when they rode out from the dwindling wood upon fields that should have shone and shimmered, yellowing to the harvest—these fields, too, were black with ruin. Here was a meadow that Garin knew. But no cattle stood within it, seeking the shade of the trees, and nowhere, field or meadow or narrow road, were there people. All lay silent, without motion, under the giant strength of the sun. The road passed under the brow of a hill, turned, and he saw where had been the grim old keep and tower and wall where he had served Raimbaut the Six-fingered. In its shadow had clustered peasants’ huts. All was destroyed; he saw not a living man, not a beast, not a dog. “How like,” said Garin of the Golden Island, “are Paynimry and Christendom!” He checked his men, and alone rode to the ruins. Dismounting, he let Noureddin crop the parched grass while he himself entered through a breach in the wall, the gateway being blocked by fallen masonry. All was desolate under the sun. The well had been filled with stones. Climbing a mass of débris, crushed wall and fallen beam and rafter, he attained the interior of the keep. Here had been sword and fire; here now were the charred bones, here the writing that said how had fought Raimbaut the Six-fingered!