Hither to meet it now cometh the witch, running along the bank, her skirts flying wild about her, and a heavy short-sword gleaming in her hand. Her furious running she stayed over against the boat, and cried out in a voice broken for lack of breath: Back over the flood To the house by the wood! Back unto thy rest In the alder nest! For the blood of the Sender lies warm on thy bow, And the heart of the Wender is weary as now. But she saw that the Sending Boat heeded her words nothing, whereas it was not her blood that had awakened it, but Birdalone’s. Then cried out the witch: O child, child! say the spell and come back to me! to me, who have reared thee and loved thee and hoped in thee! O come back! But how should Birdalone heed her prayer? She saw the sax; and withal had her heart forgotten, her flesh might well remember. She sat still, nor so much as turned her head toward the witch-wife. Then came wild yelling words from the witch’s mouth, and she cried: Go then, naked and outcast! Go then, naked fool! and come back hither after thou hast been under the hands of the pitiless! Ah, it had been better for thee had I slain thee! And therewith she whirled the sax over her head and cast it at Birdalone. But now had the boat turned its head toward the ness of Green Eyot and was swiftly departing, so that Birdalone but half heard the last words of the witch-wife, and the sax fell flashing into the water far astern. There the witch stood tossing her arms and screaming, wordless; but no more of her saw Birdalone, for the boat came round about the ness of Green Eyot, and there lay the Great Water under the summer heavens all wide and landless before her. And it was now noon of day. Here ends the First Part of the Water of the Wondrous Isles, which is called Of the House of Captivity. And now begins the Second Part, which is called Of the Wondrous Isles. THE SECOND PART: OF THE WONDROUS ISLES CHAPTER I. THE FIRST ISLE. So glided Birdalone over the lake and was come forth from the House of Captivity; it might well be that she was but swimming unto death; naked as she was, fireless, foodless, and helpless, at the mercy of mere sorcery. Yet she called to mind the word of the wood-mother that they should meet again, and took heart thereby; and she was glad in that she had had her will, and shaken off the guile and thraldom of the witch. Much she thought of the wood-mother, and loved her, and wondered had she yet sought into and seen her welfare by the burning of a hair of that tress of hers; and therewith she looked on that tress of Habundia’s hair and kissed it. All day the Sending Boat sped on, and she saw no land and nought to tell of. It was but wave and sky and the familiar fowl of the lake, as coot, and mallard, and heron, and now and then a swift wood-dove going her ways from shore to shore; two gerfalcons she saw also, an osprey, and a great ern on his errand high up aloft.