But Brandoch Daha looked towards his lady sister, met her glance, and was satisfied. “The choice lieth fair before us,” said he. “If we will eat the egg, little need to debate whether the shell must go.” Mevrian rose from her seat laughing, and said, “Then let the council rise, my lords.” And her eyes grew serious, and she said, “Shall they make rhymes upon us that we of Demonland, whom men repute and hold the mightiest lords in all the world, hung sheepishly back from this high needful enterprise lest, our greatest captains being abroad, our enemies might haply take us at home at disadvantage? It shall not be said of the women of Demonland that they upheld such counsels.” IX: SALAPANTA HILLS OF THE LANDING OF LORD JUSS AND HIS COMPANIONS IN OUTER IMPLAND AND THEIR MEETING WITH ZELDORNIUS, HELTERANIUS, AND JALCANAIUS FOSTUS; AND OF THE TIDINGS TOLD BY MIVARSH, AND THE DEALINGS OF THE THREE GREAT CAPTAINS ON THE HILLS OF SALAPANTA. On the thirty and first day after that council held in Krothering, the fleet of Demonland put to sea from Lookinghaven: eleven dragons of war and two great ships of burthen, bound for the uttermost seas of earth in quest of the Lord Goldry Bluszco. Eighteen hundred Demons fared on that expedition, and not a man among them that was not a complete soldier. For five days they rowed southaway on a windless sea, and on the sixth the sea-cliffs of Goblinland came out of the haze on their starboard bow. They rowed south along the land, and on the tenth day out from Lookinghaven passed under the Ness of Ozam, journeying thence four days with a favouring wind over the open seas to Sibrion. But now, when they had rounded that dark promontory and were about steering east along the coast of Impland the More, and less than ten days’ journey lay betwixt them and their haven in Muelva, a dismal tempest suddenly surprised them. For forty days it swept them in hail and sleet over wide-wallowing ocean, without a star, without a course; till, on a fierce midnight of wind and darkness and roaring waters was Juss’s and Spitfire’s ship and other four in her company driven on the rocks on a lee shore and broken in pieces. Hardly, and after long battling among great waves, those brethren won ashore, weary and hurt. In the inhospitable light of a wet and windy dawn they mustered on the beach such of their folk as had escaped out of the mouth of destruction; and they were three hundred and thirty and three. Spitfire, beholding these things, spake and said, “This land hath a villanous look stirreth my remembrance, as but to behold verjuice soureth the mouth of him who once tasted thereof. Rememberest thou this land?”