"Lord pity me," quoth he, "that in my time should come the stain upon our
honored house! My name, that was so white, shall now blush red. My proud
ancestors will curse me from their tomb. Let thou go my rein, that I may
seek this wanton and give her ready punishment."

So quick he drew the rein from her hand that she wellnigh stumbled. And
like one bereft of mind he rode through the woods and up the hill seeking
his false bride. High and low he searched, but no sign of his lost
mistress did he discover. Out in the distance he saw the shining city of
Baile-ata-Cliat, on the near wood side of which his gray towers stood. He
could see the flag on its topmost turret waving in the breeze like a
beckoning finger calling him back from his futile search. He turned him
about, and on every side of him were the shadowy mountains watching him
and appalling him with their mystery. Impatient he turned his eyes upon
the ground; a bramble moving in the wind cast itself about his feet. He
crushed it under his heel. A bee darting from one of the trodden flowers
made a battle-cry, and bared her sting for his neck. He struck it down
among the leaves; following its fall, his eyes, drawn by some other eyes,
rested on a hollow by a stone. There he saw gazing at him the whiskered
face of a red weasel, looking without pity, without fear.

"Evil beast!" said the Black Earl, glad to speak, for the silence of all
the listening things who watched him made his heart beat with unwonted
quickness, and he knew they were so many silent judges reading the evil of
his soul. "Get thee gone," quoth the Black Earl. "Darest thou gaze upon me
without fear?"

But the red weasel, resting at the doorway of his hole, did not blink a
lid of his sharp eyes.