Chapter II: Book I: The Way to Winchester (2)

"Listen to me," he said, "you, a woman, must not attempt Anderida alone. The town will be beleaguered, or I am no prophet. To Anderida I cannot go, for I have folk at Winchester who wait my coming. If you can put trust in me, and will ride with me to Winchester, you will find harbour there."

She considered a moment.

"Winchester," she said, "yes, and most certainly I trust you."

The man stretched out a hand to her with a smile.

"God willing," he said, "I will bear you safe to the place. As for your frocks and vows, they must follow necessity, and pocket their pride. It will not damn you to ride before a man."

"I trow not," she said, with a little laugh that seemed to make the leaves quiver. So they took horse together, and rode out from the beech wood into the moonlight.

IV

When they were clear of the solemn beeches, and saw the road white as white before them, Igraine began to tell the man of the doom of Avangel, and the great end made by Gratia the abbess. The knight had folded his red cloak and spread it for her comfort. Her tale seemed very welcome to him despite its grievous humour, and he questioned her much concerning Gratia, her goodness and her charity. Now it had been well known in Avangel that Gratia had come of noble and excellent descent, and seeing that this stranger had been familiar with her in the past, Igraine guessed shrewdly that he himself was of some ancient and goodly stock. To tell the truth, she was very curious concerning him, and it was not long before she found a speech ready to her tongue likely to draw some confession from his lips.

"I have promised to pray for you," she said, "and pray for you I will, seeing that you have done me so great a blessing to-night. When I bow to the Virgin and the Saints, what name may I remember?"

The man did not look at her, for her face was in the shadow of her hood and his clear and white in the light of the moon.

"To some I am known as Sir Pelleas," he said.

"And to me?"

"As Sir Pelleas, if it please you, madame."

Igraine understood that she was to be pleased with the name, whether she liked it or not.

"Then for Sir Pelleas I will pray," she said, "and may my gratitude avail him."

There was silence for a space, broken by the rhythmic play of hoofs upon the road, and the dull jar of steel. Igraine was meditating further catechism, adapting her questions for the knowledge she wished for.

"You ride errant," she said presently.

"I ride alone, madame."

"The wold is a rude region set thick with perils."

"Very true," quoth the man.

"Perhaps you are a venturesome spirit."

"I believe that I am often as careful as death."

Igraine made her culminating suggestion.

"Some high deed must have been in your heart," she said, "or probably you would not have risked so much."

The man Pelleas did not even look at her. She felt the bridle-arm that half held her tighten unconsciously, as though he were steeling himself against her curiosity.

"Madame," he said very gravely, "every man's business should be for his own heart, and I do not know that I have any need to share the right or wrong of mine with others. It is a grand thing to be able to keep one's own counsel. It is enough for you to know my name."

Igraine none the less was not a bit abashed.

"There is one thing I would hear," she said, "and that is how you came to know of the abbess Gratia."

For the moment the man looked black, and his lips were stern--

"You may know if you wish," he said.

"Well?"

"Madame, the Lady Gratia was my mother."

Igraine felt a flood of sudden shame burst redly into her heart. Gratia was the man's mother, and she had been plying him with questions, cruelly curious. She caught a short, shallow breath, and hung her head, shrinking like a prodigal.

"Set me down," she said. "I am not worthy to ride with you."

"Pardon me," quoth the man; "you did not think, not knowing I was in pain."

"Set me down," was all she said; "set me down--set me down."

The man Pelleas changed his tone.

"Madame," he said, with a sudden gentleness that made her desire to weep, "I have forgiven you. What, then, does it matter?"

Igraine hung her head.

"I am altogether ashamed," she said.

She drew her hood well over her face, and took her reproof to heart like a veritable penitent. Even religious solemnities make little change in the notorious weaknesses of woman. Igraine was angry, not only for having blundered clumsily against the man's sorrow, but also because of the somewhat graceless part she seemed to have played after the deliverance he had vouchsafed her. As yet her character seemed to have lost honour fast by mere brief contrast with the man's.

Pelleas meanwhile rode with eyes watching the wan stretch of road to the west. On either hand the woods rose up like nebulous hills bowelled by tunnelled mysteries of gloom. He had turned his horse to the grass beside the roadway, so that the tramp of hoofs should fall muffled on the air. Igraine, close against his steeled breast, with his bridle-arm about her, looked into his face from the shadows of her hood, and found much to initiate her liking.

If she loved strength, it was there. If she desired the grand reserve of silent vigour, it was there also. The deeply caverned eyes watching through the night seemed dark with a quiet destiny. The large, finely moulded face, gaunt and white in its meditative repose, seemed fit to front the ruins of a stricken land. It was the face of a man who had watched and striven, who had followed truth like a shadow, and had found the light of life in the heavens. There was bitterness there, pain, and the ghost of a sad desire that had pleaded with death. The face would have seemed morose, but for a certain something that made its shadows kind.

Instinctively, as she watched the mask of thought beneath the dark arch of his open casque, she felt that he had memories in his heart at that moment. His thoughts were not for her, however much she pitied him or longed to tell him of her shame and sympathy. Nothing could come into that sad session of remembrances, save the soul of the man and the memories of his mother. That he was grieving deeply Igraine knew well. His was a strong nature that brooded in silence, and felt the more; it must be a terrible thing, she thought, to have the martyrdom of a mother haunting the heart like a fell dream at night.

Slipping from such a reverie, the turmoil and weariness of the past days returned to take their tribute. Despite the strangeness of the night, Igraine began to feel sleepy as a tired child. The magnetic calm of the man beside her seemed to lull to slumber, while the motion of the ride cradled her the more. The noise of hoofs, the dull clink of scabbard against spur or harness, grew faint and faint. The woods seemed to swim into a mist of silver. She saw, as in a dream, the strong face above her staring calmly into the night, the long spear poised heavenwards. Her head was on the man's shoulder. With scarcely a thought she was asleep.

It was then that Pelleas discovered the girl heavy in his arms, and looked down to find her sleeping, with hood fallen and a white face turned peacefully to his. Strangely enough, the sorrow that had taken him seemed to make his senses vibrate strongly to the more human things of life. The supple warmth of the girl's slim body crept up the sinews of his arm like a subtle flame. From her half-parted lips the sigh of her breathing came into his bosom. Over his harness clouded her hair, and her two hands had fastened themselves upon his sword-belt with a restful trust.

The man bent his head and watched her in some awe. Her lips were like autumn fruit fed wistfully on moonlight. To Pelleas, woman was still wonderful, a creature to be touched with reverence and soft delight. The drab, the scold, and the harlot had failed to debase the ideals of a staunch spirit, and the fair flesh at his breast was as full of mystery as a woman could be.

He took his fill of gazing, feeling half ashamed of the deed, and half dreading lest Igraine should wake suddenly and look deeply into his eyes. He felt his flesh creep with magic when she stirred or sighed, or when the hands upon his belt twitched in their slumber. Pelleas had seen stark things of late, burnt hamlets, priests slaughtered and churches in flames, children dead in the trampled places of the slain. He had ridden where smoke ebbed heavenwards, and blood clotted the green grass. Now this ride beneath the quiet eyes of night, with the bosomed silence of the woods around, and this lily plucked from death in his arms, seemed like a passage of calm after a page of tempest. Little wonder that he looked long into the girl's face, and thrilled to the soft sway of her bosom. He thanked God in his heart that he had plucked her blemishless from gradual death. It was even thus, he thought, that a good soldier should ride into Paradise bearing the soul of the woman he loved.

Igraine stirred little in her sleep. "Poor child," thought Pelleas, "she has suffered much, has feared death, and is weary. Let her sleep the night through if she can." So he drew the cloak gently about her, said his prayers in his heart, and, holding as much as possible under the shadows of the trees, kept watch patiently on the track before him.

All that night Pelleas rode, thinking of his mother, with the girl sleeping in his arms. He saw the moon go down in the west, while the grey mist of the hour before dawn made the forest gaunt like an abode of the dead. He heard the birds wake in brake and thicket. He saw the red deer scamper, frightened into the glooms, and the rabbits scurrying amid the bracken. When the east mellowed he found himself in fair meadowlands lying locked in the depths of the wold, where flowers were thick as on some rich tapestry, and where the scent of dawn was as the incense of many temples. With a calm sorrow for the dead he rode on, threading the meadowland, till the girl woke and looked up into his face with a little sigh. Then he smiled at her half sadly, and wished her good-morning.

Igraine, wide-eyed, looked round in a daze.

"Day?" she said, "and meadows? It was moonlight when I fell asleep."

"It has dawned an hour or more."

"Then I have slept the night through? You must be tired to death, and stiff with holding me."

"Not so," said Pelleas.

"I am sorry that I have been selfish," she said. "I was asleep before I could think. Have you ridden all night?"

"Of course," quoth he, with a smile, "and not a soul have I seen. I have been watching your face and the moon."

Igraine coloured slightly, and looked sideways at him from under her long lashes. Her sleep had chastened her, and she felt blithe as a bird, and ready to sing. Putting the man's scarlet cloak from her, she shook her hair from her shoulders, and sprang lightly from her seat to the grass.

"I will run at your side awhile," she said, "and so rest you. Perhaps you will halt presently, and sleep an hour or two under a tree. I can watch and keep guard with your sword."

Pelleas smiled down at her like the sun from behind a cloud.

"Not yet," he said; "a soldier needs no sleep for a week, and I feel lusty as Christopher. We will go awhile before breakfast, if it please you. There is a stream near where I can water my horse, and we can make a meal from such stuff as I have. When you are tired, tell me, and I will mount you here again."

She nodded at him gravely. Grass and flowers were well-nigh to her waist. Her gown shook showers of dew from the feathery hay. Foxgloves rose like purple rods amid the snow webs of the wild daisy. Tangled domes of dogrose and honeysuckle lined the white track, and there were countless harebells lying like a deep blue haze under the green shadows of the grass.

Presently they came to where red poppies grew thickly in the golden meads. Igraine ran in among them, and began to make a great posy, while Pelleas watched her as her grey gown went amid the green and red. In due course she came back to him holding her flowers in her bosom.

"Scarlet is your colour," she said, "and these are the flowers of sleep and of dreams for those that grieve. Hold them in the hollow of your shield for me."

Pelleas obeyed her mutely. She began to sing a soft slumberous dirge while she walked beside the great black horse and plaited the flowers into its mane. The man watched her with a kind of wondering pain. The song seemed to wake echoes in him, like sea surges wake in the caverns of a cliff. He understood Igraine's grace to him, and was grateful in his heart.

"How long were you mewed in Avangel?" he said, presently.

"Long enough," quoth she, betwixt her singing, "to learn to love life."

"So I should judge," said Pelleas, curtly.

His tone disenchanted her. She threw the rest of the flowers aside, and walked quietly beside him, looking up with a frank seriousness into his face.

"I was placed there by my parents," she said, by way of explanation, "and against my will, for I had no hope in me to be a nun. But the times were wild, and my father--a solemn soul--thought for the best."

"But your novitiate. You had your choice."

"I had my choice," she answered vaguely. "Did ever a woman choose for the best? Avangel was no place for me."

Pelleas eyed her somewhat sadly from his higher vantage. "The nun's is a sorry life," he said, "when her thoughts fly over the convent walls."

A level kindness in the words seemed to loose her tongue like magic. Twelve long months had her sympathies been outraged, and her young desires crushed by the heel of a so-called godliness. Never had so kind a chance for the outpouring of her discontent come to her. Women love an honest grumble. In a moment all her bitterness found ready flight into the man's ears.

"I hated it!" she said, "I hated it! Avangel had no hold on me. What were vigils, penitences, and long prayers to a girl? They made us kneel on stone, and sleep on boards. The chapel bell seemed to ring every minute of the day; we had vile food, and no liberty. It was Saint This, Saint That, from morning till night. We saw no men. We might never dress our hair; and, believe me, there were no mirrors. I had to go to a little pool in the garden to see my face.

"And they were so dull,--so dismal. No one ever laughed; no one ever told romances; all our legends were of pious things in petticoats. And what was the use of it all? Was any one ever a jot the better? I used to get into my cell and stamp. I felt like a corpse in a charnel-house, and the whole world seemed dead."

Pelleas scanned her half smilingly, half sadly.

"I am sorry for your heart," he said.

"Sorry! You needs must be when you are a soldier, with life in your ears like a clarion cry."

"Life is a sorry ballad, Sister Igraine, unless we remember the Cross."

"Ah, yes, I have all the saints in mind--dear souls; but then, Sir Pelleas, one cannot live on one's knees. I was made to laugh and twinkle, and if such is sin, then a sorry nun am I."

"You misunderstand me," said the man. "I would that a Christian held his course over the world, with a great cross set in the west to lead him. He can laugh and joy as he goes, sleep like the good, and take the fruits of life in his time. Yet ever above him should be the glory of the cross, to chasten, purge, and purify. There is no sin in living merrily if we live well, but to plot for pleasure is to lose it. Look at the sun; there is no need for us to be ever on our knees to him, yet we know well it would be a sorry world without his comfort."

"Ah," she said, with a little gesture. "I see you are too devout for me, despite my habit. Take me up again, Sir Pelleas, and I will ride with you, though I may not argue."

Pelleas halted his horse, and she was soon in the saddle before him, somewhat subdued and pensive in contrast to her former vivacity. The man believed her a nun, and she had a character to play. Well, when she wearied of it, which would probably be soon, she could tell him and so end the matter. It was not long before they came to the ford across the stream Pelleas had spoken of. It was a green spot shut in by thorn trees, and here they made a halt as the knight had purposed.

Before the meal Pelleas knelt by the stream and prayed. Igraine, seeing him so devout, did likewise, though her eyes were more on the man than on heaven. Her thoughts never got above the clouds. When they were at their meal of meat and bread, with a horn of water from the stream, she talked yet further of her life at Avangel, and the meagre blessing it had been to her. It was while she talked thus that she saw something about the man's person that fired her memory, and set her thinking of the journey of yesterday.

Pelleas was wearing a gold chain that bore a cross hanging above the left breast, but with no cross over the right. Looking more keenly, Igraine saw a broken link still hanging from the right portion of the chain. Instinctively her thoughts fled back to the silent manor in the wood, and the dead man seated stiffly in the great carved chair.

Without duly weighing the possible gravity of her words, she began to tell Pelleas of the incident.

"Yesterday," she said, "I saw a strange thing as we fled through the wold. We came to a villa, and, seeking food there, found it deserted, save for a dead man seated in a chair, and stricken in the breast. The dead man had a small gold cross clutched in his fingers, and there was a dead hound at his feet."

The man gave her a keen look from the depths of his dark eyes, and then glanced at the broken chain.

"You see that I have lost a cross," he said.

Igraine nodded.

"Your reason can read the rest."

She nodded again.

"There is nothing like the truth."

Igraine stared at the man in some astonishment. He was cold as a frost, and there was no shadow of discomfort on his strong face. Knowledge had come to her so sharply that she had no answer for him at the moment. Yet there stood a sublime certainty in her heart that this violent deed was deserving of absolute approval, so soon had her faith in him become like steel.

"The man deserved death," she said presently, with a curt and ingenuous confidence.

Pelleas eyed her curiously.

"How should you know?" he asked.

"I have faith in you," was all she said.

Pelleas smiled, despite the subject.

"No man deserved death better."

"And so you slew him."

He nodded without looking at her, and she could see still the embers of wrath in his eyes.

"I slew him in his own manor, finding him alone, and ready to justify himself with lies. Honour does not love such deeds; but what would you?--Britain is free of a viper."

"And you have blood on your hand."

He winced slightly, and glanced at his fingers as though she had not spoken in metaphor.

"All is blood in these days," he said.

"And what think you of such laws?" she ventured, with a supreme reaching after the requirements of her Order. "What of the Cross?"

"There was blood upon it."

"But the blood of self-sacrifice."

Her words moved him more than she had purposed. His dark face flushed, and light kindled in his eyes as though the basal tenets of his life had been called in question. He glowed like a man whose very creed is threatened. Igraine watched the fire rising in him with a secret pleasure,--the love of a woman for the hot courage of a man.

"Listen to me," he said strongly; "which think you is the worthier life: to dream in a stone cell mewed from the world like a weak weed in a cellar, or to go forth with a red heart and a mellow honour; to strive and smite for the weak and the wounded; to right the wrong; to avenge the fatherless? Choose and declare."

"Choose," she said, with a shrill laugh and a kindling colour, "truth, and I will. Away with the rosary; give me the sword."

Like a wild echo to her human choice came the distant cry of a horn borne hollowly over the sleeping meadows. Both heard it and started. The great war-horse, grazing near by, tossed his head, snorted, and stood listening with ears twitching and head to the east. Pelleas rose up and scanned the road from under his hand, with the girl Igraine beside him.

"A Saxon horn," he said laconically; "the heathen are in the woods."

V

As they watched, looking down betwixt two thorn trees, a faint puff of dust rose on the road far to the east, and hung like a diminutive cloud over the meadows. This danger signal counselled the pair. Pelleas caught his horse and sprang to selle; Igraine clambered by his stirrup, and was lifted to her seat before him. Pelleas slung his shield forward, and loosened his sword.

"If it comes to battle," he said, "I will set you down, and you must hide in the meadows or woods, while I fight. You would but cumber me, and be in great peril here. Rest assured, though, that I shall not desert you while I live."

With that he turned his horse to the road, and halted, gazing down amid the placid fields to where the little cloud of dust had hinted at life. It was there still, only larger, and sounded on by the distant triple canter of horses at the gallop. Pelleas and Igraine could see three mounted figures coming up the road amid a white haze, moving fast, as though pressed by some as yet unseen enemy. It was soon evident to Pelleas and the girl that one of the fugitives was a woman.

"We will abide them," said the man, "and learn their peril. We shall be stronger, too, for company, and may succour one another if it comes to smiting. Look! yonder comes the heathen pack."

A second and larger cloud of dust had appeared, a mile or less beyond the first. Pelleas watched it awhile, and then turned and began riding at a trot towards the west, so that the three fugitives should overtake him. He bade Igraine keep watch over his shoulder while he scanned the meadows before them for sign of peril or of friendly harbour.

"Have no fear, child," he said; "I could vow, by these fields, that there is a manor near. I trust confidently that we shall find refuge."

Igraine smiled at him.

"I am no coward," she said.

"That is well spoken."

"I would, though, that you would give me your dagger, so that, if things come to an evil pass, I shall know how to quit myself."

"My dagger!" he said, with a sudden stare. "I left it in the man's heart in Andredswold."

"Ah!" said Igraine; "then I must do without."

The dull thunder of the nearing gallop came up to them--a stirring sound, full of terse life and eager hazard. Pelleas spurred to a canter, while Igraine's hair blew about his face and helmet as they began to meet the kiss of the wind. She clung fast to him with both hands, and told what was passing on the road in their rear.

"How they ride," she said; "a tangle of dust and whirling hoofs. There is a lady in blue on a white horse, with an armed man on either flank. They are very near now. I can see the heathen far away over the meadows. They are galloping, too, in a smoke of dust. Our folk will be with us soon."

In a minute the lady and her men were hurtling close in Pelleas's wake. He spurred to a gallop in turn, and bade Igraine wave them on to his side. The three were soon with them, stride for stride. The girl on the white horse drew up on Pelleas's right flank. She was habited in blue and silver--a flaxen-haired damosel, with the round face of a child. Seemingly she was possessed of little hardihood, for her mouth was a red streak in a waste of white, and her blue eyes so full of fear that Igraine pitied her. She cried shrilly to Pelleas, her voice rising above the din like the cry of a frightened bird.

"The heathen!" she cried.

"Many?" shouted the man.

"Two score or more. There is a strong manor near. If we gain it we may live."

"How far?"

"Not a mile over the meadows."

"Lead on," said Pelleas; "we will follow as we may."

The damosel on the white horse turned from the road, and headed southwards over the meadows, with her men galloping beside her. The long grass swayed, water-like, before them, its summer seed flying like a mist of dew. Wood and pasture slid back on either hand. The ground seemed to rise and fall before them as a sea, while rocks here and there thrust up bluff noses in the grass like great lizards stirred by the hurtling thunder of the gallop.

On they went, with white spume on breast and bridle; leaping, swerving where rough ground showed. To Igraine the ride was life indeed, bringing back many a whistling gallop from the past. She felt her heart in her leaping to the horse's stride. Now and again she took a sly look at Pelleas's face, finding it calm and vigilant--the face of a man whose thought ran a silent course unruffled by the breeze of peril. She felt his bridle-arm staunchly about her like a girdle of steel. Although she could see the dust gathering thickly on the distant road, she felt blithe as a new bride in the man's company, and there was no fear at all in her thought.

The grassland began to slope gradually towards the south. A quavering screech of joy came back to them from the woman riding in the van. Pelleas spoke his first word during the gallop.

"Courage," he said. "Southwards lies our refuge."

Igraine looked over his shoulder, and saw how their flight tended down the flank of a gentle hill into the lap of a fair valley. The grass stretch was broken by great trees--oaks, beeches, and huge, corniced cedars. Down in the green hollow below them a mere shone with the soul of the sky steeped in its quiet waters. It was ringed with trailing willows, and an island held its centre, piled with green shadows and the grey shape of a fair manor. The place looked as peaceful as sleep in the eye of the morning.

The woman on the white horse bade one of her men take his bugle-horn and blow a summons thereon to rouse the folk upon the island. Twice the summons sounded down over the water, but there was no answering stir to be marked about the house or garden. The place was smokeless, lifeless, silent. Like many another home, its hearths were cold for fear of the barbarian sword.

As they held downhill, Igraine wove the matter through her thought like swift silk through a shuttle.

"Should there be no boat," she said, giving voice to her misgivings, "what can you do for us?"

"We must swim for it," said Pelleas, keenly.

"It is a broad, fair water, and the horse cannot bear us both."

"He shall, if needs be."

She felt that the brute would, after Pelleas had spoken so. She patted the arched black neck, and smiled at the sky as they came down to the mere's edge at a canter. The water was lapping softly at the sedges amid a blaze of marsh marigolds and purple flags, the surface gleaming like glass in the sun. Half a score water-hens went winging from the reeds, and skimming low and fast towards the island. A heron rose from the shallows, and laboured heavenwards with legs trailing.

Riding round the margin, they found to their joy a barge grounded in a little bay, with sweeps ready upon the thwarts, and a horse-board fitted at the prow. A purple cloak hung over one bulwark, trailing in the water; a small crucifix and a few trinkets were scattered on the poop, as though those who had used the ferry last had fled in fear, forgetful of everything save flight.

Then came the embarkation. The barge would but hold three horses at one voyage, so Pelleas ordered Igraine and the rest into the boat, and bade the men row over and return. Igraine demurred a moment.

"Leave your horse," she said; "they may come before the boat can take you."

Pelleas refused her with a smile, running his fingers through the brute's black mane.

"I have a truer heart than that," he said.

The men launched away, and pulled at the sweeps with a will, Igraine helping, and doing her devoir for the man Pelleas's sake. The barge slid away, with ripples playing from the prow, and a gush of foam leaping from each smile of the blades. It was a hundred yards or more to the island, and the craft was ponderous enough to make the crossing slow.

Pelleas sat still and watched the meadows. Suddenly--bleakly--a figure on horseback topped the low hill on the north, and held motionless on the summit, scanning the valley. A second joined the first. Pelleas caught a shout, muffled by the wind, as the two plunged down at full gallop for the mere, sleeping in its bed of green. Here were two gentlemen who had outstripped their fellows, and were as keen as could be to catch Pelleas before the barge could recross, and set the mere betwixt them. Pelleas saw his hazard in a moment. Even if the barge came before the heathen, there would be some peril of its capture in the shallows.

He would have to fight for it, unless he cared to swim the mere. Provided he could deal with these two outriders before the main company came up, well and good, the raiders would find clear water between the quarry and their swords. He thought of Avangel, and grew iron of heart. Then there was the nun, Igraine, with the wonderful eyes, and hair warm as the dun woods in autumn. He was her sworn knight as far as Winchester. God helping him, he thought, he would yet see her face again. So he rode out grimly to get fair field for horsecraft, and waited for the two who swept the meadows.

Igraine, standing on the wooden stage at the water's edge, saw Pelleas taking ground and preparing for a tussle. The barge had put off again and had already half spanned the water. She was alone with the woman of the white horse, who stood beside her still quaking like a reed, and almost voiceless from the fulsome terror of an unshrived death. Igraine had no heed for her at the moment. Her whole thought lurked with the red shield and the black horse in the meadows. Worldly heart! her desire burnt redly in her own bosom, and found no flutter for the powers above.

She saw Pelleas gathering for the course, while the heathen slackened so as not to override their mark. A crescent of steel flashed as the foremost man launched his axe at the knight's head. The red shield caught and turned it. In a trice Pelleas's spear had picked the rogue from the saddle, despite his crouching low and seeking to shun it. The second fellow came in like a whirlwind. His horse caught the black destrier cross counter and rolled him down like a rammed wall. Pelleas avoided, and was up with bleak sword. Smiting low, he caught the man's thigh, and broke the bone like a lath. The Saxon lost his seat, and came down with a snarling yell. The rest was easy as beating down a maimed wolf.

The main company had just topped the hill. Pelleas, with the skirmish ended to his credit, shook his sword at them, and led his horse into the shallows. The barge swept in, took its burden from the bank, and held back for the island, where Igraine stood watching on the stage, ready with her welcome. She was glad of Pelleas in her heart, as though the comradeship of half a day had given her the right to share his honour, and to chime her joy with his. The woman in her swamped the assumed sanctity of the nun. As the water stretch lessened between them, Pelleas, silent and dark-browed as was his wont, found himself beneath the beck of eyes that gazed like the half-born wonder of the sky at dawn. It was neither joy nor great light in them, but a kind of quiet musing, as though there were strange new music in her soul.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, as he sprang from the barge and stood beside her, with head thrown back and his great shoulders squared.

"Not a graze."

"Two to one, and a fair field," quoth she, with a quaver of triumph; "my heart sang when those men went down. That was a great spear thrust."

"Less and less of the rosary!"

She caught his deep smile, and laughed.

"I am a greater heathen than either," she said. "God rest their souls."

Meanwhile the lady in the blue tunic had somewhat recovered her squandered wits and courage. She came forward with a simpering dignity, walking daintily, with her gown gathered in her right hand, and her left laid over her heart. Her eyes were very big and blue, their brightness giving her an eager, sanguine look that was upheld the more by an assumed simpleness of manner. Her childish bearing, winsomely studied, exercised its subtleties with a lavish embellishment of smiles and blushes. Looked at more closely, and in repose, her face belied in measure the perspicuous personality she had adopted. A sensual boldness lurked in mouth and nostrils, and there was more carnal wisdom there than a pretended child should possess.

"Courtesy fails me, sir," she said, letting her shoulders fall into a graceful stoop, and turning her large eyes to Pelleas's face; "courtesy fails me when I would most praise you for your knightly deed in yonder meadows. I am so frightened that I cannot speak as I would. My heart is quite tired with its fear and flutter. Think you--you can save us from these wolves?"

Pelleas had neither the desire nor the leisure to stand juggling courtesies with the woman.

"Madame," he said, "we shall fight. Leave the rest to Providence. I can give you no better comfort."

"No," she said, "no"--as in a daze.

Pelleas, reading her misery, repented somewhat of his abrupt truthfulness.

"Come," he said, with a kind strength and a hand on her shoulder; "go to the house and rest there with Sister Igraine. I see you are too much shaken. Go in and pray if you can, while we hold the island."

The girl looked at him unreservedly for a moment. Then she gave a little laugh that was half a sob, and, bending to him, kissed his hand before he could prevent her. Giving him yet another glance from her tumbled hair, she stepped aside to Igraine, and they turned together towards the manor, and the trees and gardens that ringed it. The girl had set her hand in Igraine's with a little gesture that was intended to be indicative of confidence in the supposed nun's greater intelligence.

"Let us go and sit under that yew tree," she suggested. "I cannot stifle within walls now. You are named Igraine. I am called Morgan--Morgan la Blanche,--and I am a lord's daughter. I almost envy you your frock now, for death cannot frighten you as it frightens me. Of course you are very good, and the Saints guard and watch over you. As for me, I have always been very thoughtless."

"Not more than I," said Igraine, with a smile. "I have often hummed romances when I should have praised Paul or Peter."

"But doesn't the fear of death blight you like a frost?"

"I never think of death."

"It seems so near us now that I can hardly breathe. Do you think we are tortured in the other world, if there be one?"

"How should I know, simple one?"

"I wish the mere were a league broad. I should feel further from the pit."

"Is your conscience so unkind?"

"Conscience, sister? It is self-love, not conscience. I only want to live. Look!--the heathen are coming down to the mere. How their axes shine. Holy Mother!--I wish I could pray."

Igraine, catching the girl's pinched face, with lips drawn and twitching, pitied her from her very heart.

"Come then, I will pray with you," she said.

"No, no, my prayers would blacken heaven. I cannot, I cannot."

The wild company had swept down between the great trees in disorderly array. Their weapons shone in the sunlight, their round bucklers blickered. They were soon at the place where Pelleas had slain his men in fair and open field. Dismounting, they gathered about their dead fellows, and sent up, after their custom, a vicious, dismal ululation, a sound like the howling of wolves, drear enough to make the flesh tingle under the stoutest steel. Lining the bank among the willows, they shook buckler and axe, gesticulating, threatening, their long hair blowing wild, their skin-clad bodies giving them a wolfin look not pleasant to behold. Round the margin they paddled--searching--casting about for a boat. They seemed like beasts behind the gates of some Roman amphitheatre--caged from the slaughter. The girl Morgan looked at them, screamed, and hid her face in her tunic. Igraine found the girl's quaking hand, and held it fast in hers.

"Courage, courage," she said; "there is no boat, and, even if they swim, Sir Pelleas is a great knight."

"What can he do against fifty?" whined the girl, with her face still covered.

"Fifty? There are but a score. I have numbered them myself."

"I would give all the jewels in the world to be in Winchester."

"Ah! girl, I have no jewels to give; but this, I promise you, is better than a convent."

The barbarians had gathered in a group beneath a great willow. Plainly they were in debate as to what should be done. Some, by their gestures, their tossing weapons, and their bombast, were for swimming the mere. Their councils were palpably divided. Possibly the sager folk among them did not think the venture worth the loss to them it might entail, seeing that one of those cooped upon the island had already given proof of no mean prowess. They could see the three armed men waiting grimly by the water's edge, ready to strike down the swimmer who should crawl half-naked from the water weeds and mire. Gradually, but surely, the elder tongues held the argument, and the balance went down solemnly for those upon the island.

Pelleas and the two men, watching keenly for any movement, saw the circle of figures break and melt towards the horses. They saw them pick up the bodies of their two dead fellows, and lay them across the saddle. In a minute the whole troop turned, and held away southwards at a trot, flinging back a last wild cry over the water. The meadows rolled away behind them; the gradual trees hid them from moment to moment. Pelleas and the two servants stood and watched till the black line had gone southwards into the thickening woods.

Under the yew tree Morgan la Blanche had uncased her white face, and was smiling feebly.

"I am glad I did not pray," she said; "it would have been so weak. Look! I have torn my tunic, and my belt's awry. Bind my hair for me, sister, quickly,--before Sir Pelleas comes."

VI

With the heathen lost in the distant woods, Pelleas and the women essayed the house, leaving the two servants to sentinel the island.

The great gates of the porch were ajar. Pushing in, they crossed into the atrium, and found it sleepy as solitude. The water in the impluvium gleamed with the gold flanks of the fish that moved through its shadows. Lilies were there, white and wonderful, swooning to their own images in the pool. The tiled floor was rich with colour. Venturing further, they found the triclinium untouched, rich couches and flaming curtains everywhere, gilded chairs, and deep-lustred mirrors, urns, and flowers. In the chapel candles were guttered on the altar; dim lights came down upon a wealth of solemn beauty--saints, censers, crosses, frescoed walls all green and azure, gold and scarlet. The viridarium, set betwixt chapel and tablinum, held them dazed with a glowing paradise of flowers. Here were dreamy palms, orange trees like mounts of gold, roses that slept in a deep delight of green. Over all was silence, untainted even by the silken purr of a bird's wing.

Gynœcium and bower were void of them in turn. Everywhere they found the relics of a swift desertion. The manor folk had gone, as if to the ferry of death, taking no worldly store or sumptuous baggage with them. Not a living thing did they discover, save the fish darting in the water. The cubicula were empty, their couches tumbled; the culina fireless, and its hearth cold.

Pelleas and the women marvelled much at the beauty of the place; its solitude seemed but a ghostly charm to them. As for the girl Morgan, she had taken Pelleas into her immediate and especial favour, holding at his side everywhere, a-bubble with delight. The luxury of the place pleased her at every glance; her vanity ran riot like a bee among flowers. She eyed herself furtively in mirrors, and put a rose daintily in her hair while Pelleas was not looking. She had already rifled a cabinet, strung a chain of amethysts about her neck, and poked her fingers into numberless rings. Then she would try the couches, queen it for a moment in some stately chair, or smother her face sensuously in the flowers growing from the urns. All these pretty vapourings were carried through with a most mischievous grace. Igraine, who had seen the girl white and whimpering an hour before and in deadly horror of the pit, wondered at her, and hated her liberally in her heart.

Nor was Pelleas glad of the change her presence had wrought; for her childish subtleties had no hold on him, and even her thieving seemed insipid. With solemn and shadowy thoughts in his heart, her frivolous worldliness came like some tinkling discord. Igraine seemed to have dimmed her eyes from him beneath the shadow of her hood. Her face was set like the face of a statue, and there was no play of thought upon it. She walked proudly behind the pair--not with them--like one elbowed out of companionship by a vapouring rival.

In the women's bower Morgan found a lute, and pounced upon it.

"One's whole desire seems here," she chattered. "This bower suits my fancy like a dream, and I could lodge here a month for love of it. What think you, Knight Pelleas? I never set foot in a fairer manor. I warrant you there are meat and wine in the cellars. We will feast and have music anon."

Pelleas's face looked more suited to a burial. Igraine pitied him, for his eyes looked tired and sad. Morgan ran on like a jay. In the chapel she found Igraine a share.

"Here is your portion, holy Sister," she said; "mine the bower, yours the altar. So you see we are all well suited. Come, though, is it not very horrible having to look solemn all day, and to wear a grey gown? I should fade in a week inside such a hood; besides, it makes you look such a colour."

Igraine could certainly boast a colour at that moment that might have warned the woman of her rising fume. Pelleas broke in and took up the argument.

"Men do not consider dress," he said; "everything is fair to the comely. I look into a woman's face and into her eyes, and take the measure of her heart. Such is my catechism."

"But you like to see rich silks and a smile, and to hear a laugh at times. What is a girl if she is not gay? No discourtesy to you, sister; but you seem so far set from Sir Pelleas and myself."

Igraine, lacking patience, flared up like a torch. "Ha! mark you," she said, "my habit makes me no coward, nor do I thieve. No discourtesy to you, my dear lady."

Morgan set up a thrill of laughter.

"How true a woman is a nun," quoth she; "but you are too severe, too careful. Thieving, too; why, I may as well have a trinket or so before the place is rifled, even if I take a single ring. And what is more, I have been turned from my own house with hardly a bracelet or a bodkin. Come, Sir Pelleas, let us be going; the Sister would be at her prayers. I see we but hinder her."

Pelleas had lost both pity and patience in the last minute. Partisanship is inevitable even in the most trivial differences, and Pelleas's frown was strongly for Morgan la Blanche.

"Perhaps it would be well, madame," said he, "if we all went on our knees for the day's deliverance. I cannot see that there is any shame in gratitude."

"Gratitude!" chirped the girl. "Gratitude to whom?"

"To the Lord Saviour, madame, and the Mother Virgin."

She half laughed in his face, but his eyes sobered her. For a moment she fronted him with an incredulous smirk, then her glance wavered, and lowered to his breast. It held there with a tense stare, while her whole face hardened. Pelleas saw her pupils darken, her cheeks flush and pale in a moment. He thought nothing of it, or ascribed her distraught and strange look to some sudden shame or shock of penitence. In a trice the smile was back again, and she seemed pert and pleased as ever.

"I see you are too devout for me," she said with a glib laugh, "and that I am too wicked a thing for the moment. I will leave you to Sister Igraine till you both have prayed your fill." Here she laughed again, a laugh that made Igraine's cheeks burn. "Remember me to St. Anthony if you may. If I recollect rightly he was a nice old gentleman, who cured 'the fire' for a miracle, and nearly fell in love with a devil. Till you have done, I will go and gather flowers."

Pelleas and Igraine looked at one another.

"A devout child," said the man.

"And not bred in a nunnery."

"The world's convent, I should say."

For the moment Igraine was almost for telling him of her own hypocrisy, but the thought found her more troubled on that score than she could have guessed. She had acted a lie to the man, and feared his true eyes despite her courage. "Another day I will tell him," she thought; "it is not so great a sin after all." So they turned and knelt at their devotions.

Morgan la Blanche went away like the wind. She ran through atrium and porch with hate free in her eyes, and her child's face twisted into a scowl of temper. In the garden she idled up and down awhile in a restless fume, like one whose thoughts bubble bodingly. Sometimes she would smite a lily peevishly with her open hand, or pluck a flower and trample it under her feet as though it had wronged her. Then she would take something from her bosom and stare at it while her lips worked, or while she bit her fingers as though galled by some inward barb. Presently she found her way by a laurel walk to the orchard, and thence by a wicket-gate to the island's rim, where one of her men kept watch on the further meadows.

She stood under an apple tree, called to him, and beckoned. He came to her--a short, burly fellow with the look of a bull, and brute writ large on his visage. Morgan drew him under the swooping dome of the tree, plucked something that shone from her bosom, and dangled it before his eyes.

"The cross," she said, almost in a whisper. "Galerius, the cross."

The man stared at her stupidly. Morgan lifted a finger, ran this way and that peering into the green glooms and listening. Then she came back to the man, soft-footed, glib as a cat, with the cross of gold gripped in her fingers. She smiled at him, a smile that was almost a leer.

"Galerius," she said, "the knight in the house yonder wears a chain with one cross missing, and the fellow cross matches this. Moreover, his poniard sheath is empty. I marked all this as I stood by him a moment ago. This is the man who slew my lord."

The servant's heavy face showed that he understood her well enough now.

"To-night," she said, almost skipping under the trees with the intensity of her malice, "it shall be with his own poniard. I have it here. Galerius, you have always been a good fellow."

The man grinned.

"Keep silence and leave all to me. I shall need your hand and no more."

"Nor shall he," said Galerius curtly.

Morgan grew suddenly bleak and quiet, with the thought of murder harboured in her heart.

"Look for yourself, Galerius," she said; "see that my eyes have not deceived me. The man must have come upon Lord Madan when he was alone, after our hirelings had deserted the house. He slew him in the winter room--this whelp sent by Aurelius the king. You and I, Galerius, found the cross in my lord's dead hand, and the poniard in his bosom. I warrant you we will level this deed before we hold again for Winchester."

"Trust my hand, Madame Morgan," quoth the man; "if you can have the fellow sleeping, so much the better, one need not strike in a hurry."

"Leave it to me," she said; "I will give you your knife and your chance to-night."

With that she sent the fellow back to his watching, and threaded the orchard to the manor garden. Pelleas and Igraine had long ended their prayers in the chapel. Morgan found them in the atrium, watching the fish in the water and their own reflections in the pool. The girl had quite smothered the bleak look that had held her features in the orchard. She was the same ingenuous, self-pleased little woman whose blue eyes seemed as clear and honest as a sleeping sea in summer. Before, she had flown in Pelleas's face for vanity's sake; now she seemed no less his woman--ready with smiles and childish flattery, and all the pleasantness she could gather. She was at his side again--quick with her eyes and tongue. Probably she guessed that the man despised her, but then that was of no moment now, seeing that it made the secret in her heart more bitter.

At noon they dined in the triclinium, with man Galerius to serve. He had ransacked kitchen and pantry, and from the ample store discovered, had spread a sufficient meal. His eyes were ever on Pelleas as he waited. There was no doubt about cross or poniard sheath; and Galerius found pleasure in scanning the knight's armour and looking for the place where he might strike.