soldiers, sobbed, and a clear cry made the maidens; like rain the
tears came down from gallery to gallery.

All round the Queen of the Woods was a storm of sobbing and sorrow.

But no, she would not weep.



THE HOARD OF THE GIBBELINS


The Gibbelins eat, as is well known, nothing less good than man. Their
evil tower is joined to Terra Cognita, to the lands we know, by a
bridge. Their hoard is beyond reason; avarice has no use for it; they
have a separate cellar for emeralds and a separate cellar for
sapphires; they have filled a hole with gold and dig it up when they
need it. And the only use that is known for their ridiculous wealth is
to attract to their larder a continual supply of food. In times of
famine they have even been known to scatter rubies abroad, a little
trail of them to some city of Man, and sure enough their larders would
soon be full again.

Their tower stands on the other side of that river known to Homer--_ho
rhoos okeanoio_, as he called it--which surrounds the world. And where
the river is narrow and fordable the tower was built by the Gibbelins'
gluttonous sires, for they liked to see burglars rowing easily to
their steps. Some nourishment that common soil has not the huge trees
drained there with their colossal roots from both banks of the river.