“But whither away?” said Juss, standing up from his chair. “Thou must not leave us.”
“Whither but to mine own place?” said he, and was gone from the chamber.
Gaslark said, “He’s much incensed. What hast thou done to anger him?”
Mevrian said to Juss, “I’ll follow and cool him.” She went, but soon returned saying, “No avail, my lords. He is ridden forth from Galing and away as fast as his horse might carry him.”
Now were they all in a great stew, some conjecturing one thing and some another. Only the Lord Juss kept silence and a calm countenance, and the Lady Mevrian. And Juss said at length to Gaslark, “This it is, that he chafeth at every day’s delay that letteth him from having at Corinius. Certes, I’ll not blame him, knowing the vile injuries the fellow did him and his insolence toward thee, madam. Be not troubled. His own self shall bring him back to me when time is, as no other power should do ’gainst his good will; he whose great heart Heaven cannot force with force.”
And even so, the next night after, when folk were abed and asleep, Juss, in his high bed-chamber sitting late at his book, heard a bridle ring. So he called his boys to go with him with torches to the gate. And there in the dancing torch-light came the Lord Brandoch Daha a-riding into Galing Castle, and somewhat of the bigness of a great pumpkin tied in a silken cloth hung at his saddle-bow. Juss met him in the gate alone. “Let me down from my horse,” he said, “and receive from me thy bed-fellow that thou must sleep with by the Lake of Ravary.”
“Thou hast gotten it?” said Juss. “The hippogriff’s egg, out of Dule Tarn, by thyself alone?” and he took the bundle right tenderly in his two hands.
“Ay,” answered he. “’Twas where thou and I made sure of it last summer, according to the word of her little martlet that first found it for us. The tarn was frozen and ’twas tricky work diving and most villanous cold. It is small marvel thou’rt a lucky man in thine undertakings, O Juss, when thou hast such an art to draw thy friends to second thee.”
“I thought thou’dst not leave me,” said Juss.
“Thought?” cried Brandoch Daha. “Didst ever dream I’d suffer thee to do thy foolishnesses alone? Nay, I’ll come first to the enchanted lake with thee, and let be Carcë i’ the meantime. Howbeit I’ll do it ’gainst the stream of my resolution quite.”