The Water of the Wondrous Isles

by William Morris

Now she bade us come a little further into the garden and eat a morsel at noon; and we arose, and she brought us to where were vines trellised all about and overhead, so that it was like a fair green cloister; and there was a board laid and spread with many dainties of meat and drink. And she bade us sit. Verily we had but little stomach to that dinner; and I said to myself, Poison! poison! and even so my fellows deemed, as afterwards they told me. And I saw Baudoin loosen his sword in the sheath, and I knew that his mind was to smite at once if he saw aught amiss. And I, who sat next to the witch, laid my hand on a little dagger which I wore at my girdle. She also saw this, and turned as pale as death, and sat trembling before us; and whatso we ate or drank at that board under the rustling vine-leaves, she gave unto us with her own hand; and then we wotted full surely that she had meant our deaths there and then, but was cowed by the fierce eyes of Baudoin and the threat of my hand.

Withal it seemed that she might not bear it to sit there long amongst us. She rose up and smiled on us as ghastly as a corpse, and gave us leave, and went hurrying into the house. And right glad we were to be at rest from her. Yet as we ourselves durst not go far away from the house, lest some new thing might happen, neither could she leave us quite alone, but thrice again that afternoon at some turn of the garden, or orchard, or meadow, we came upon her wan face and eyes full of all hate and staring pride, and she enforced her to smile upon us, and turned away with some idle word.

At last the sun began to sink, and we went to the perron of the house, and found her standing to meet us in her wonted way. But when we came up she gave no hand to any one of us but went up the stairs before us, and we followed with no word spoken.

There was the hall with the lordly service on the board, and the wax-candles lighted all about, and the great vault of stone fair and stately over it. We went to the dais and the board and sat down, the witch-wife in her gold and ivory chair at the board’s end, and I at her right hand and looking down the hall, my two fellows facing me, with their backs to the clear of the hall.

There we sat, and the meats and drinks were before us as dainty as ever erst; but we put forth no hand to them, but sat staring at each other for some two minutes it might be, and the witch looked from one to the other of us, and quaked that her hands shook like palsy.

Then I rose up and put my hand to my bosom (for Baudoin had given me the flasket ere we came to the perron): I spake in a loud voice, and it sounded wild and hard in the goodly hall: My lady, I said, thou art looking but pale now, and sick and downcast. Drink now to me out of this precious flasket, and thou shalt be whole and well.

And therewith I held the flasket aloft; but her face changed horribly; she sprang up in her chair and reached out her arm to clutch at the flasket, screaming like an eagle therewith. But I thrust her back into the chair with my left hand; and therewith arose Baudoin and Arthur, and caught her by the shoulders, and bound her fast to the chair with cords that they had gotten thereto. But when she got her breath she yelled out: Ah, now shall all tumble together, my proudful house and I under it! Loose me, traitors! loose me, fools! and give me one draught of the water of might, and then shall I tell you all, and ye shall go free with your thralls if ye will. Ah! ye will not loose me? ye will not? Well then, at least ye, the fools, shall be under it, and they also, the she-traitors, the scourged and tormented fools that might not save themselves from me. O loose me! loose me! thou in whose arms I have lain so many a night, and give me to drink of the proud water of might!

So she yelled; and now had all the fairness gone from her body: flaggy and yellow were her limbs, and she looked all over as her face, a lump of stupid and cruel pride, and her words lost meaning and changed into mere bestial howling. But for me, since she so desired that water, I knew that it was good for us to drink, and I took out the stopple and drank, and it was as if fire ran through all my veins, and I felt my strength three-folded straightway, and most wondrous clear was my sight grown therewith; and I raised my eyes now and looked down the hall, and lo, there was Aurea, chained by the ankle to the third pillar from the dais; and over against her, Viridis; and next, to the fourth pillar, Atra. Then I cried in a loud voice that rang through the witch’s hall: Lo what I see! And I ran round the head of the board, and thrust and dragged Baudoin and Arthur along with me, crying out: Come, come! they are found! they are here! And I came to my sweetling, and found her clad but in her white smock, which was flecked with blood all about, and her face was wan and pined, and the tears began to run when she saw me, but no word came from her lips though the kissing of them was sweet.

Then I turned about to my two fellows, and they stood bewildered, not knowing what was toward; and I came to them and made them drink of the flasket, and their eyes were opened and the strength of giants came to them, and they ran each to his sweetling; but Baudoin, before ever he kissed Aurea, caught hold of the chain that bound her to the pillar, and by main force dragged it out. Wise was that, meseemed, for words were again come into the witch’s howls, and I heard her: Ah, long may ye be playing with the chains, long! for now the house rumbleth toward its fall. Ah, the bitches are loose! Woe’s me! to die alone! And once more she howled wordless, as both I and Arthur had our loves in our arms, and fell to following Baudoin out on to the perron and down into the fresh fragrant garden wherein now was the moon beginning to cast shadows.

Stood we then aloof from the house, and the rumbling whereof the evil hag had howled waxed into a thunder, and under our very eyes the great white walls and gold-adorned roofs fell together, and a great cloud of dust rose under the clear moonlit sky.