As to those two way-leaders withal, whether it were that they got
used to their faces, or that their ways and manners were nought
uncourteous or fierce, they doubted them less and less as time wore;
all save Viridis, whose flesh crept when they drew anigh her, as will
betide one who comes across an evil-looking creeping thing. As for
Atra, she now began to heed little the things about her, as if her
heart were wholly set on the end of the journey.
But now at last were they come so far that they had no choice but to
use the said way-leaders, for they were gotten to the edge of
Evilshaw. So they entered it, and those two led them by half-blind
ways and paths amongst the thickets, and fumbled never with the road.
Five days they went thus, and on the fifth evening they lay down to
sleep in the wood, and it was the turn of those two hirelings to keep
watch and ward, and they woke not the next morn save with the hands
of the Red Felons at their throats, so that Hugh was bound, and his
two trusty men who came with him from the Green Mountains were slain
before a stroke might be struck.
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