Casting about over the hills he had come upon Garlotte's valley, and seeing it green and shadowy, had plunged down to profit by the shade. Since the Red Knight was lost to him, it was immaterial whether he rode by wood or hill. On this account, too, Gorlois's temper was as hot as his skin. He hated a baulking above all things; he was moved to be furious with trifles, and like the savage who gnashes at the stone that bruises his foot, he cursed creation and felt thoroughly at war with the world. A grim unreason had possession of him, such a mood as makes murder a mere impulse of the hand, and malice the prime instinct of the heart. As he rode with loose rein the trees thinned suddenly, and the forest gloom rolled back over his head. Gorlois halted mechanically under the wooelshawe, and scanned the valley spread before him under the brown hollow of his hand. He had expected no such open land in this waste of wood--open land with water, a cottage, sheep feeding, and horses tethered under the trees. One of the horses tethered there was a black. The coincidence livened Gorlois's torpid, sunburnt face with a cool gleam of intelligence. He sat motionless in the saddle and took the length and breadth of the valley under the keen ken of his black eyes. The man swore a little oath into his peaked black beard. His face grew suddenly rapacious as he stared out under the hollow of his hand. He had seen a streak of red strike through the green wall far up the eastern slope that fronted him, a scrap of colour metallic with the hint of armour. It went to and fro under the distant trees like a torch past the windows of a church. Gorlois's hand tightened on the bridle. He watched the thing as a hawk watches a young rabbit in the grass. Betimes he gave a queer little chuckle, and turned his horse into the deeper shade of the trees. He began to make a circuit round the valley, holding northwards to compass the meadows. He cast long, wary glances into the wood as he went; tried his sword to see that it was loose in the scabbard; took his helmet from the saddle-bow, and let down the cheek-pieces from the crown. Before long he kicked his stirrups away, rolled out of the saddle, and tied his horse to an oak sapling in a little dell. Going silently on foot over the mossy grass, stopping often to stare into the sunny vistas of the forest, moving more or less from tree to tree, he worked his way southwards along the eastern slope. Streaks of meadowland and the glint of water showed below him, and he heard the bleat of sheep far away, and the tinkling of a bell. Presently the murmur of voices came to him through the woods. He ventured on another fifty paces, then stopped behind a tree to listen. There were two voices, he was sure of that: one was a woman's, and the other had the sonorous vibration of a man's bass. Gorlois's eyes took a queer, far-away look, and his strong teeth showed between his lips.