“ ‘You see me,’ the figure answered him. “Name me true, and your wish is my wish.”

“ ‘You are the spirit of the lark sent forth by the armiger’s daughter,’ said the second suitor. “Your form you may change, but the ring marks you.’

“At that, the figure in brown drew sword and presented it hilt foremost to the second suitor. ‘You have named me rightly,’ it said. “What would you have me do?’

“ ‘Return with me to the armiger’s house,’ said the suitor, “so that I may show you to the armiger’s daughter and so win her.’

“‘’Twill return with you gladly, if that is what you wish,’ said the figure in brown. ‘But I warn you now that if she sees me, she will not see in me what you see.’

“ ‘Nevertheless, come with me,’ answered the suitor, for he did not know what else to say.

“On such a bridge as the mountain people build, a man may turn about without much difficulty, but a four-legged beast finds it nearly impossible to do so. Therefore, they were forced to continue to the farther side in order that the second suitor might face his mount toward the armiger’s house once more.

‘How tedious this is,’ he thought as he walked the great catenary of the bridge, ‘and yet, how difficult and dangerous. Cannot that be used to my benefit?’ At last he called to the figure in brown, ‘I must walk this bridge, and then it again. But must you do so as well? Why don’t you fly to the other side and wait there for me?’

“At that, the figure in brown laughed, a wondrous trilling. ‘Did you not see that one of my wings is bandaged? I fluttered too near one of your rivals, and he slashed at me with his sword.’

“‘Then you cannot fly far?’ asked the second suitor.

“ ‘No indeed. As you approached this bridge I was perched on the brown walkway resting, and when I heard your tread I had scarcely strength to flutter up.’

“ ‘I see,’ said the second suitor, and no more. But to himself he thought: ‘If I were to cut this bridge, the lark would be forced to take bird-form again—yet it could not fly far, and I should surely kill it. Then I could carry it back, and the armiger’s daughter would know it.”

“When they reached the farther side, he patted the neck of his mount and turned it about, thinking that it would die, but that the best such animal was a small price to set against the ownership of great herds. ‘Follow us,’ he said to the figure in brown, and led his mount onto the bridge again, so that over that windy and aching chasm he went first, and the destrier behind him, and the figure in brown last of all.

‘The beast will rear as the bridge falls,’ he thought, ‘and-the spirit of the lark will not be able to dash past, so it must resume its bird shape or perish.’ His plans, you see, were themselves shaped by the beliefs of my land, where those who set store in shape-changers will tell you that like thoughts they will not change once they have been made prisoner.

“Down the long curve of the bridge again walked the three, and up the side from which the second suitor had come, and as soon as he set foot on the rock, he drew his sword, sharp as his labour could make it. Two handrails of rope the bridge had,, and two cables of hemp to support the roadway. He ought to have cut those first, but he wasted a moment on the handrails, and the figure in brown sprang from behind into the destrier’s saddle, drove spur to its flanks, and rode him down. Thus he died under the hoofs of his own mount,

“When the youngest suitor, who had gone toward the sea, had ridden some days as well, he reached its marge. There on the beach beside the unquiet sea he met someone cloaked in brown, with a brown hat, and a brown cloth across nose and mouth, and a gold ring about the ankle of a brown boot.

“ ‘You see me,” the person in brown called. ‘Name me true, and your wish shall be my wish/

“‘You are an angel,’ replied the youngest suitor, ‘sent to guide me to the lark I seek.”

“At that the brown angel drew a sword and presented it, hilt foremost, to the youngest suitor, saying,

‘You have named me rightly. What would you have me do?”

“Never will I attempt to thwart the will of the Liege of Angels,’ answered the youngest suitor. ‘Since you are sent to guide me to the lark, my only wish is that you shall do so.”

“ ‘And so I shall,’ said the angel. ‘But would you go by the shortest road? Or the best?’

“At that the youngest suitor thought to himself, ‘Here surely is some trick. Ever the empyrean powers rebuke the impatience of men, which they, being immortal, can easily afford to do. Doubtless the shortest way lies through the horrors of caverns underground, or something like.’ Therefore he answered the angel, ‘By the best. Would not it dishonour her whom I shall wed to travel any other?”