They found them there in the twilight of the dawn. For long, Ecta
looked at them and pondered. Then he glanced at Molios. There were
tears in the heart of the holy man, but in his eyes a deep anger.
"Bind him," said Ecta.
Cathal woke with the thongs. His gaze fell upon Molios. He made no
sign, and spake never a word: but he smiled.
"What now, O Molios?" asked Ecta.
"Take the woman away. Do with her as you will--spare or slay. It
matters not. She is but a woman, and she hath wrought evil upon this
man. To slay were well."
"She is my daughter."
"Spare, then, if you will; but take her away. Give her to a man. She
shall never see this renegade again."
With that, two men led Ardanna away. She gave a glance at Cathal, who
smiled. No tears were in her eyes: but a proud fire was there, and she
brooked no man's hand upon her, and walked free.
When she was gone, Molios spake.
"Cathal, that was called Cathal Gille-Muire, why have you done this
thing?"
"Because I was weary of vain imaginings, and I am young: and Ardanna
is fair, and we loved."
"Such love is death."
"So be it, Molios. Such death is sweet as love."
"No ordinary death shalt thou have, blasphemer. Yet even now I would
be merciful if I could. Dost thou call upon God?"
"I call upon the gods of my fathers."
"Fool, they shall not save you."
"Nevertheless, I call. I have nought to do with thy three gods, O
Christian."
"Hast thou no fear of hell?"
"I am a warrior, and the son of my father, and of a race of heroes.
Why should I fear?"
Molios brooded a while.
"Take him," he said at last, "and bury him alive where his gods
perchance will hear his cries and come and save him! Find me a hollow
tree."
"There is a great oak near here," said Ecta, wondering, "a great
hollow oak whose belly would hold five men, each standing upon the
other."
With that he led them to an ancient tree.
"Dost thou repent, Cathal?" Molios asked.
"Ay," the young man answered grimly; "I repent. I repent that I wasted
the good days serving you and your three false gods."
"Blaspheme no more. Thou knowest that these three are one God."
Cathal laughed mockingly.
"Hearken to him, Ecta," he cried; "this old druid would have you
believe that two men and a woman make one person! Believe that if you
will! As for me, I laugh."
But with that, at a sign from Molios, they lifted and slung him amid
the branches of the oak, and let him slide feet foremost into the deep
hollow heart of the tree.
When the law was done, Molios bade all near kneel in a circle round
the oak. Then he prayed for the soul of the doomed man. As he ended
this prayer, a laugh flew up among the high wind-swayed leaves. It
was as though an invisible bird were there, mocking like a jay.
One by one, with bowed heads, Molios and Ecta and those with him
withdrew, all save two young men who were bidden to stay. Upon these
was bond laid, that they would not stir from that place for three
days. They were to let none draw nigh; and no food was to be given to
the victim; and if he cried to them, they were to take no heed,--nay,
not though he called upon God or the Mother of God or upon the White
Christ.
All that day there was no sound from the hollow tree. At the setting
of the sun a blackbird lit upon a small branch that drooped over the
aperture, and sang a brave lilt. Then the dark came, and the moon
rose, and the stars glimmered through the dew.
At midnight the moon was overhead. A flood of pale gold rays lit up
the branches of the oak, and turned the leaves into a lustrous bronze.
The watchers heard a voice singing in the silence of the night--a
voice muffled and obscure, as from one in a pit, or as that of a
shepherd straying in a narrow corrie. Words they caught, though not
all; and this was what they heard:[5]
O yellow lamp of Ioua that is having a cold pale flame there,
Put thy honey-sheen upon me who am close-caverned with Death:
Sure it is nought I see now who have seen too much and too little:
O moon, thy breast is softer and whiter than hers who burneth the
day.
Put thy white light on the grave where the dead man my father is,
And waken him, waken him, wake!
And put my soft shining on the breast of the woman my mother,
So that she stir in her sleep and say to the Viking beside her,
"Take up thy sword, and let it lap blood, for it thirsts with long
thirst."
And O Ioua, be as the sea-calm upon the hot heart of Ardanna, the
girl:
Tell her that Cathal loves her, and that memory is sweeter than
life.
I list her heart beating here in the dark and the silence,
And it is not lonely I am, because of that, and remembrance.
O yellow flame of Ioua, be a spilling of blood out of the heart of
Ecta,
So that he fall dead, inglorious, slain from within, as a greybeard;
And light a fire in the brain of Molios, so that he shall go
moonstruck,
And men will jeer at him, and he will die at the last, idly
laughing.
For lo, I worship thee, Ioua; and if you can give my message to
Neis,--
Neis the helot out of Aoidû, who is in Iona, bondman to Colum,--
Tell him I hail you as Bandia, as god-queen and mighty,
And that he had the wisdom and I was a fool with trickling ears of
moss.
But grant me this, O goddess, a bitter moon-drinking for Colum!
May he have the moonsong in his brain, and in his heart the
moonfire:
Flame burn him in heart of flame, and may he wane as wax at the
furnace,
And his soul drown in tears, and his body be a nothingness upon
the sands!
[5] _Ioua_ was one of the early Celtic names of the moon. The
allusion (in the fourth line) to the sun, in the feminine, is in
accordance with ancient usage.
The watchers looked at each other, but said no word. On the pale face
of each was fear and awe. What if this new god-teaching were false,
and if Cathal was right, and the old gods were the lords of life and
death? The moonlight fell upon them, and they saw doubt in the eyes of
each other. Neither looked at the white fire. Out of the radiance,
cold eyes might stare upon them: and at that, sure they would leap to
the woods, laughing wild, and be as the beasts of the forest.
While it was still dark, an hour before the dawn, one of the twain
awoke from a brief slumber. His gaze wandered from vague tree to tree.
Thrice he thought he saw dim shapes glide from bole to bole or from
thicket to thicket. Suddenly he discerned a tall figure, silent as a
shadow, standing at the verge of the glade.
His low cry aroused his companion.
"What is it, Mûrta?" the young man asked in a whisper.
"A woman."
When they looked again she was gone.
"It was one of the Hidden People," said Mûrta, with restless eyes
roaming from dusk to dusk.
"How are you for knowing that, Mûrta?"
"She was all in green, just like a green shadow she was, and I saw the
green fire in her eyes."
"Have you not thought of one that it might be?"
"Who?"
"Ardanna."
With that the young man rose and ran swiftly to the place where he had
seen the figure. But he could see no one. Looking at the ground he was
troubled: for in the moonshine-dew he descried the imprint of small
feet.
Thereafter they saw or heard nought, save the sights and sounds of the
woodland.
At sunrise the two youths rose. Mûrta lifted up his arms, then sank
upon his knees with bowed head.
"Why do you do that forbidden thing?" said Diarmid, that was his
companion. "Have you forgotten Cathal the monk that is up there alone
with death? If Molios the holy one saw you worshipping the Light he
would do unto you as he has done unto Cathal."
But before Mûrta answered they heard the voice of Cathal once
more--hoarse and dry it was, but scarce weaker than when it thrilled
them at the rising of the moon.
This was what he chanted in his muffled voice out of his grave there
in the hollow oak:
O hot yellow fire that streams out of the sky, sword-white and
golden,
Be a flame upon the monks who are praying in their cells in Ioua!
Be a fire in the veins of Colum, and the hell that he preacheth
be his.
And be a torch to the men of Lochlin that they discover the Isle
and destroy it!
For I see this thing, that the old gods are the gods that die not:
All else is a seeming, a dream, a madness, a tide ever ebbing.
Glory to thee, O Grian, lord of life, first of the gods, Allfather.
Swords and spears are thy beams, thy breath a fire that consumeth.
And upon this isle of Â-rinn send sorrow and death and disaster,
Upon one and all save Ardanna, who gave me her bosom,
Upon one and all send death, the curse of a death slow and
swordless,
From Molios of the Cave to Mûrta and Diarmid my doomsmen!
At that Mûrta moved close to the oak.
"Hail, O Cathal!" he cried. There was silence.
"Art thou a living man still, or is it the death of thee that is
singing there in the hollow oak?"
"My limbs perish, but I die not yet," answered the muffled voice that
had greeted the sun.
"I am Mûrta mac Mûrta mac Neisa, and my heart is sore for thee,
Cathal!"
There was no word to this. A thrush upon a branch overhead lifted its
wings, sang a wild sweet note, and swooped arrowly through the green
gloom of the leaves.
"Cathal, that wert a monk, which is the true thing? Is it Christ, or
the gods of our fathers?"
Silence. Three oaks away a woodpecker thrust its beak into the soft
bark, tap-tapping, tap-tapping.
"Cathal, is it death you are having, there in the dark and the
silence?"
Mûrta strained his ears, but he could hear no sound. Over the
woodlands a voice floated, drowsy-warm and breast-white--the voice of
a cuckoo calling a love-note from cool, green shadow to shadow across
a league of windless blaze.
Then Mûrta that was a singer, went to where the bulrushes grew by a
little tarn that was in the moss an arrow-flight away. He plucked a
last-year reed, straight and brown, and with his knife cut seven holes
in it. With a thinner reed he scooped the hollow clean.
Thereupon he returned to the oak. Diarmid, who had begun to eat of the
food that had been left with them, sat still, with his eyes upon him.
Mûrta put his hollow reed to his lips, and he played. It was a
forlorn, sweet air that he had heard from a shepherding woman upon the
hills. Then he played a burying-song of the islanders, wherein the
wash of the sea and the rippling of the waves upon the shore was
heard. Then he played the song of love, and the beating of hearts was
heard, and sighs, and a voice like a distant bird-song rose and fell.