Sun came more and more slanting through the trees. Eating was done. The two sat in forest light and coolness, and they went over plans step by step so that there might rest no misunderstanding nor any happening unprovided against. “The Vineyard boat, and the word is ‘Gold and silver.’ South around Middle Forest and then east. Leave the ruined farm at dusk to-morrow.”
“I have found a great hollow tree,” said Englefield and pointed to it. “If any come, in I creep!”
“Good! Unless there are dogs,” Bettany said. With that he fell into silence.
The other, half-reclining, also was silent. Gold light playing over him showed how gaunt he was and his face how lined and smitten.
Bettany spoke. “Dost think True Religion has taken any hurt?”
“How should True Religion take hurt, having been all the time in another country?”
The young man mused. “To have thought one’s self Chosen out of all the world because of one’s qualities—and then to be thrown back, past one’s old dwelling, past, past, down past the whole world—”
Richard Englefield spoke. “I looked on Medusa. Do you know what is that, to look on Medusa? And looking, to open on the knowledge that you yourself were the artist?”
“Eh?” said Thomas Bettany. “But the first of it must have been glorious! Honey and kingship and worship and safety for aye!”
“Honey and kingship and worship and safety for aye. Just that! Then the hair turned to snakes.”