Said the witch: Yet have I an image of a naked woman standing down there before me; and if I have it in mine eye, so should ye. Tell me therefore, and beware, for We are not bidden to hold Our hand from you if We take you in misdeeds. If I quaked before, now much more I quaked, till my legs well-nigh failed me for fear; but Atra said: Great lady, this image will belike be of that one whom a while ago ye had stripped and tied to a pillar here, and tormented while ye feasted. The lady looked on her hard, and again seemed striving to gather up the thrums of some memory, and then her face became smooth again, and she spake lightly: All that may well be; so do ye go about your due service, and trouble Our rest here no longer; for We love not to look on folk who be not wholly Our own to pine or to spare, to slay or let live, as We will; and We would that the winds and the waves would send Us some such now; for it is like to living all alone to have but such as you with Us, and none to cower before Us and entreat Us of mercy. So begone, I bid you. Thus for that time were we saved from the witch’s cruelty; but our time came before long. The days wore heavily, nor kept we count of them lest we should lose heart for the weariness of waiting. But on a day as we stood on the steps of the perron and served my lady with dainties, of a hot afternoon, came two great white doves a-flying, who pitched down right before our mistress’s feet; and each had a gold ring about his neck, and a scroll tied thereto, and the witch bade us take the doves and take off the scrolls and give them unto her; and she looked on the gold rings which the doves bore, and for a moment on the scrolls, and then she said: Take ye the doves and cherish them, lest We have need of them; take also the two scrolls and keep them till to-morrow morning, and then give them into Our hands. And look ye to this, that if ye give them not unto Us it will be treason against Us, and We shall have a case against you, and your bodies will be Ours. Then she rose up slowly, and bade me to her that she might lean upon my shoulder and be helped upstairs, so slothful a beast as she was; and as we went up I heard her say softly to herself: Weary on it, now must I drink a sup of the Water of Might, that I may remember and do and desire. But dear is my sister, and without doubt she hath matters of import to tell me by these doves.