Part 36 (1/2)

Hardly had the golden toy touched the water when out flashed a long dagger from his robes, and he flew on me, thinking, no doubt, that I must needs turn my head to watch the fall of his sickle, and I was ready for him. He was no warrior, and his hand was too high, but he was a priest, and on him I would not use my weapon. I swung aside from him, striking up his arm, and his blind rush carried him against the menhir, so that the blow which was meant for me fell thereon, scoring the stone deeply; and lo! his own hand ended with that blow what I had begun, marking the cross-beam I had yet to make, so that the holy sign was complete.

And I saw that in a flash, even as he reeled back from the menhir and staggered. His foot splashed into the ooze of the bank and went down; and with that he lost his footing altogether and fell headlong into the pool, swaying as he went, across the front of the menhir.

Now there was a shout and the sound of hurrying footsteps behind me, but it was Howel's voice, and I did not turn. I leaned on the menhir to try to catch the white robes that swirled below me, and then I felt a heave and quaking in the turf on which I knelt as I reached over the black water, and Howel cried out and dragged me back roughly for a long fathom.

The menhir was falling. Slowly at first, and then more swiftly, it bent forward over the pool, and then it gathered way suddenly, and with a mighty crash it fell with all its towering height across it--and across the last flash of the white robes of the man who yet struggled therein.

For a moment the cross looked skyward, and then the wave swept over the stone, and it was gone into the unknown depths that maybe held so many secrets of the strange rites of those who had reared it.

Only where its foot had been planted was a pit to shew that somewhat had been there, and that was slowly filling with the black bog which had undermined the stone at last. The old prophecy had come to pa.s.s, and there was indeed an end.

But I saw for a moment into that pit before it was filled, and in it was laid open as it were a great stone chest, where the base of the menhir had been to cover it, and in that were skulls and bones of men, and among them the dull gleam of ancient gold and flint.

The wild tumult of the water died away, and the ripples came, and then the pool was gla.s.sy as before, but there was no sign of movement in it, and now it was clear no longer. And still Howel and I stared silently at that place whence the great stone had pa.s.sed like a dream.

”Nona saw it troubled,” Howel said at last.

But I answered what was in my mind, with a sort of despair:

”He never told me where Owen lies.”

”But I think we have found him, or nearly,” Howel answered. ”Come with me. This is no place for us to bide in. Did you hear those voices?”

I had heard the echoes from the rocks after the great crash, and they were strange and wild enough, but I heard nothing more.

”I heard one shout some time since,” I said, rising up from where I still sat as Howel had left me.

”Nay, but the wailing when the stone fell,” he said. ”Wailing from all around. Wailing as of the lost. Come hence, Oswald.”

I do not know if the man of the more ancient race heard more than I, mingled with those wild echoes, but I know that Howel the prince feared little. Now he was afraid, even in the bright sunlight, and owned it.

But the first shock had pa.s.sed from me, and I looked for our horses. They had gone. I think that the fall of the menhir scared them, for they were yet tied where Evan left them, just before that.

”Howel, the horses have broken loose and gone,” I cried.

”Let them be,” he said; ”they will but go to the men down the valley, and will be caught there. Come, we must get hence.”

He fairly dragged me with him towards the glen, and it was not until we were out of the circle of cliffs round the pool and picking our way among the boulders of the water course, that he spoke again.

”That is better,” he said,--”one can breathe here. I do not care if I never set eyes on that place again, and indeed I hope we need not. Now we have to find Owen as quickly as we may.”

”What of the two men?”

”One turned on us, and we slew him perforce. The other Evan has tied up safely, though it took us all our time to catch him. I left Evan trying to make him speak.”

I wondered in what way he was trying, but the path grew steeper and steeper, and the plash of water falling among the stones made it hard to hear. We went on and on, ever upward, until the walls of the narrow glen widened, and at last we were on a barren hillside, across which the little stream found its way in a belt of green gra.s.s and fern and bog from farther heights yet, and there I looked for Evan. The path reappeared here again, and it went slanting across the hill and over its shoulder, hardly more than a sheep track as it was. And here lay the body of the slain man.

”Over the hill crest,” Howel said, noting my look around. ”The man ran across this track. Did you hear what Morfed said to them?”

”No, I heard him call, of course, but his tongue is unknown to me.”

”It was the ancient British, I think. I heard a word or two here and there, but few of those we use yet. I heard more that are written in our oldest writings, and few enough of them. But what he said to his men was plain enough, happily. He bade them kill the captive to amend the wrong done. I do not know what the wrong was.”