They brake their fast quietly and returned by the way they came. And the Queen said, “My lords Juss and Brandoch Daha, there be few steeds of such a kind to carry you to Zora Rach nam Psarrion, and not ye, though ye be beyond the half-gods in your might and virtue, might have power to ride them but if ye take them from the egg. So high they fly, so shy they are, ye should not catch them though ye waited ten men’s lifetimes. I will send my martlets to see if there be another egg in the world.” So she despatched them, north and west and south and east. And in due time those little birds returned on weary wing, all save one, without tidings. “All have come back to me,” said the Queen, “save Arabella alone. Dangers attend them in the world: birds of prey, men that slay little birds for their sport. Yet hope with me that she may come back at last.” But the Lord Juss spake and said, “O Queen Sophonisba, to hope and wait lieth not in my nature, but to be swift, resolute, and exact whensoever I see my way before me. This have I ever approved, that the strawberry groweth underneath the nettle still. I will assay the ascent of Zora.” Nor might all her prayers turn him from this rashness, wherein the Lord Brandoch Daha besides did most eagerly second him. Two nights and two days they were gone, and the Queen abode them in great trouble of heart in her pavilion by the enchanted lake. The third evening came Brandoch Daha back to the pavilion, bringing with him Juss that was like a man at point of death, and himself besides deadly sick. “Tell me not anything,” said the Queen. “Forgetfulness is the only sovran remedy, which with all my art I will strive to induce in thy mind and in his. Surely I despaired ever to see you in life again, so rashly entered into those regions forbid.” Brandoch Daha smiled, but his look was ghastly. “Blame us not overmuch, dear Queen. Who shoots at the mid-day sun, though he be sure he shall never hit the mark, yet as sure he is he shall shoot higher than who aims but at a bush.” His voice broke in his throat; the whites of his eyes rolled up; he caught at the Queen’s hand like a frightened child. Then with a mighty effort mastering himself, “I pray bear with me a little,” he said. “After a little good meats and drinks taken ’twill pass. I pray look to Juss: is a dead, think you?”