at last we drew so near to the opposite steep that I could well nigh
count its pines.

It was about the hour when birds seek shade and leave but few among
their fellows to sing, that at a stone's throw from the foot of the
hill I came to where a faint bridle-path diverged. And since it was
smooth with moss, and Rosinante haply tired of pebbles; since any but
the direct road seems ever the more delectable, I too turned aside,
and broke into the woods through which this path meandered.

Maybe it is because all woods are enchanted that the path seemed more
than many miles long. Often too we loitered, or stood, head by head,
to listen, or to watch what might be after all only wings, mere
sunbeams. Shall I say, then, that it began to be thorny, and, where
the thorns were, pale with roses, when at length the knitted boughs
gradually drew asunder, and I looked down between twitching, hairy
ears upon a glade so green and tranquil, I deemed it must be the
Garden of the Hesperides?

And because there ran a very welcome brook of water through this
glade, I left Rosinante to follow whithersoever a sweet tooth might
dictate, and climbed down into the weedy coolness at the waterbrink.

I confess I laughed to see so puckered a face as mine in the clear
blue of the flowing water. But I dipped my hands and my head into the
cold shallows none the less pleasantly, and was casting about for a
deeper pool where I might bathe unscorned of the noonday, when I heard
a light laughter behind me, and, turning cautiously, perceived under
the further shadow of the glade three ladies sitting.