And there was rejoicing also because
men hoped that when the Gibbelins were robbed of their hoard, they
would shatter their high-built bridge and break the golden chains that
bound them to the world, and drift back, they and their tower, to the
moon, from which they had come and to which they rightly belonged.
There was little love for the Gibbelins, though all men envied their
hoard.
So they all cheered, that day when he mounted his dragon, as though he
was already a conqueror, and what pleased them more than the good that
they hoped he would do to the world was that he scattered gold as he
rode away; for he would not need it, he said, if he found the
Gibbelins' hoard, and he would not need it more if he smoked on the
Gibbelins' table.
When they heard that he had rejected the advice of those that gave it,
some said that the knight was mad, and others said he was greater than
those what gave the advice, but none appreciated the worth of his
plan.
He reasoned thus: for centuries men had been well advised and had gone
by the cleverest way, while the Gibbelins came to expect them to come
by boat and to look for them at the door whenever their larder was
empty, even as a man looketh for a snipe in a marsh; but how, said
Alderic, if a snipe should sit in the top of a tree, and would men
find him there? Assuredly never! So Alderic decided to swim the river
and not to go by the door, but to pick his way into the tower through
the stone.
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