So did they, and the head of the rock was higher than the main face of the rock-sea, so that they could see afar.  Thence they looked north and beheld afar off a very pillar of fire rising up from a ness of the mountain wall, and seeming as if it bore up a black roof of smoke; and the huge wall gleamed grey, because of its light, and it cast a ray of light across the rock-sea as the moon doth over the waters of the deep:  withal there was the noise as of thunder in the air, but afar off:  which thunder indeed they had heard oft, as they rode through the afternoon and evening.

Spake the Sage:  “It is far away:  yet if the wind were not blowing from us, we had smelt the smoke, and the sky had been darkened by it.  Now it is naught so far from Utterbol, and it will be for a token to them there.  For that ness is called the Candle of the Giants, and men deem that the kindling thereof forebodeth ill to the lord who sitteth on the throne in the red hall of Utterbol.”

Ralph laid his hand on Ursula’s shoulder and said: 
“May the Sage’s saw be sooth!”

She put her hand upon the hand and said:  “Three months ago I lay on my bed at Bourton Abbas, and all the while here was this huge manless waste lying under the bare heavens and threatened by the storehouse of the fires of the earth:  and I had not seen it, nor thee either, O friend; and now it hath become a part of me for ever.”

Then was Ralph exceeding glad of her words, and the Sage laughed inwardly when he beheld them thus.

So they came adown from the rock and lay down presently under the fiery heavens:  and their souls were comforted by the sound of the horses cropping the grass so close to their ears, that it broke the voice of the earth-fires’ thunder, that ever and anon rolled over the grey sea amidst which they lay.

On the morrow they still rode the lava like to clinkers, and it rose higher about them, till suddenly nigh sunset it ended at a turn of their winding road, and naught lay betwixt them and that mighty ness of the mountains, save a wide grassy plain, here and there swelling into low wide risings not to be called hills, and besprinkled with copses of bushes, and with trees neither great nor high.  Then spake the Sage:  “Here now will we rest, and by my will to-morrow also, that your beasts may graze their fill of the sweet grass of these unwarded meadows. which feedeth many a herd unowned of man, albeit they pay a quit-rent to wild things that be mightier than they.  And now, children, we have passed over the mighty river that once ran molten betwixt these mountains and the hills yonder to the west, which we trod the other day; yet once more, if your hearts fail you, there is yet time to turn back; and no harm shall befall you, but I will be your fellow all the way home to Swevenham if ye will.  But if ye still crave the water of the Well at the World’s End, I will lead you over this green plain, and then go back home to mine hermitage, and abide there till ye come to me, or I die.”