LEADER OF THE KYMRY.
Cormac had never seen Ethne in anguish before; for anguish was the only
word to express the condition in which he now beheld her.
Her grief and tears appeared to him so unnatural that for a few seconds
he had looked and listened without comprehending the scene before him.
“I have lost her!” Ethne was saying. “I have searched everywhere and I
cannot find her. Neither seer nor soothsayer can aid me--I have lost
her whom I would not have lost for all the world!”
Her grief was quite unfeigned. Her limbs trembled so much that she
could not stand. Her face was white as death.
Cormac’s heart beat fast. The remembrance of his words to Elgiva came
back to him.
He saw Ethne wring her hands in despair. She gave one mournful cry,
“Elgiva! Elgiva!” and fell fainting into the arms of her women.
Cormac had a strange, choking sensation. The old passionate admiration
for Ethne stirred in his heart once more, mixed with a flood of remorse
and shame and doubt.
Elgiva had flown from his side. She had torn her way through the
crowd. He could see her kneeling beside Ethne, holding her in her arms
and calling upon her by name. Ethne had recovered from her momentary
faintness, but was still so weak that Elgiva was obliged to support
her. The two women laughed and cried together. There was a wild scene
between them--Elgiva explaining, Ethne expostulating. Cormac could see
that Ethne’s present joy was as unfeigned as her past grief.
The Saxon helped Ethne to her seat, and then knelt at her feet, holding
one of the small white hands in a tender grasp. At sight of the two
women a murmur of applause came from the people assembled in the hall.
Cormac stole up quietly and stood behind Elgiva, his sparkling eyes
fixed on Ethne’s face; her face looked soft and gentle with the traces
of grief still upon it. She looked up at him, not surprised at his
appearance--having just heard from Elgiva that he had rescued her.
Ethne held out her hand.
“You would not let me go with you,” she said, gently, “but I have
followed you.”
He said nothing in reply; but bending down knelt on one knee before her
and placed her hand upon his head.
It was the very scene to appeal to the hearts of the people. Cormac
was recognised, in spite of his shrouding cloak. Cry after cry to his
honour rang through the room. Weapons flashed, and clashed aloft.
“The Black Horse!” they cried, “Cormac of Fail! Cormac and Ethne!
Children of Tuathal! Twigs from the tree of Tara! All hail! All hail!”
They were the same battle cries, in the same Hibernian voices, as those
which had greeted him when he rode through Ireland with Ethne many
months before.
Cormac stood upright and threw aside his cloak. One of Ethne’s slaves
drew a scented saffron robe around him, another placed a golden hoop on
his head.
The applause grew louder. Trumpets and timpans almost deafened the
people. Cormac’s eye flashed, his cheek glowed.
He walked up and down the raised platform; smiling and responding to
the people.
“The Black Horse! The Black Horse!” they cried. “The Black Horse
against the White!”
Then an old man--so old men had forgotten the year of his birth--rose
and asked for a few minutes’ silence, that he might be heard.
“I call on you all to witness this thing,” he piped, “that one has come
among us from over the seas mightier than Hengist or Horsa. Here is the
Avenger! Here is the Black Horse! And though Britain lies white with
the cold ash of the White Horse she shall be blackened, in time, by the
scorch of the Black!”
The tumult was so great, after this, that although Cormac was seen to
speak, his voice could not be heard.
Again he walked up and down with the easy, spirited motion that
reminded Elgiva so irresistibly of the fleet mountain steeds. Often had
she seen such springing, quivering movements as she had watched them,
eager for the race.
In the confusion of sounds, Cormac’s quick ear detected the first
chords of a war-dance struck from the harps around him; and responding
to the music, he leapt forward and broke into the first movement of the
beloved sword-dance.
A half-halo of light glanced round him as he drew his sword like
lightning from its sheath. A band of warriors immediately gathered
about him and joined with him in the mazes of the dance.
Elgiva watched him with a beating heart. She realised now the truth of
what Ethne had told her--that Cormac drew men around him as a flower
gathers bees. Who could resist him, this darling of the people? He had
the grace and fire of an untamed animal, as he responded, with voice
and limb, to the music. More than mortal he seemed. His feet were
winged, surely; they did not hurry, but went on ever, swift and light
and even. To watch him--with a battle-song on his lips and sword and
feet ever in time to the music--was to see the very personation of
youth and fire.
Once, as he passed by her seat, he paused for an instant; then wove
one of the figures of the dance around her. The spirit of mischief
shone in his eyes. Bending towards her, as though in the measure of the
dance, he whispered teasingly:
“Do you remember your words to me at Glendalough? Tell me, Elgiva, are
you as ready now as then to wed me?”
The dance carried him away from her before she could reply. She flashed
a look at him. A ripple of teasing laughter came to her ears in return.
Again when he passed her--his eyes challenged hers. It was new to
her this wild assertive mood of his. She watched him with a vague
wonder--this personification of her mother’s race who turned so easily
from one note to another in the scale of human passion and played upon
its gamut with the ease their fingers played upon the harp.
Who could resist him, she asked herself, this darling of the people?
Ethne watched him, well-pleased; knowing that, to these simple
people--children of the soil--a stronger appeal could be made by dance
than by speech.
“Ahoi! Ahoi!” came Cormac’s battle cry once more. He tossed his locks
from his gleaming forehead; his thin nostril quivered; his sword
shimmered constantly in a half-arc of light. Swifter and swifter flew
his feet, as sword and shield gleamed in the warrior dance. He chanted
as he sang:
“Dance on! dance on: let us dance on! Dance on for aye! Till sword, and
foot, and tongue doth yield. The magic sense from rhythm born! Dance
on: dance on: let us dance on!”
Warrior after warrior fell out and gave place to others in the charmed
circle of the sword-dancers--either too fatigued or too confused and
giddy to observe the figures of the dance. But still the light, swaying
figure of the young chieftain flew on--till the eyes of the whole
assembly filled with wonder at him.
All present were so intent upon him that, for a time, they were
unconscious of uproar and confusion outside the hall.
Suddenly every entrance was flooded by a sea of white, agonized faces.
The faces, for the greater part were those of old men and women and
children, but amongst them were warriors’, blanched with fear; they
looked more ghastly because of the flaring torches they carried. A
confused murmur accompanied them--not the voices of men, but rather
the passionate sighs of those whom fear had turned to mutes.
The leader of the dance continued though all around the attention
was falling from him, and men were gazing upon each other in growing
excitement--knowing the tumult must mean battle--but not knowing the
quarter from whence it came.
In the moment of suspense Bret and Pict and Scot were stirred to the
very depths of the fount from which they drew their war-passion. Hands
leapt to knife and pike and Roman blade as, with paling faces, they
turned involuntarily towards each other. Shrill voices, at length,
broke yelling into the assembly.
“The Heathen--the Saxons--are upon us! They close in upon us from
either side!”
The leader of the sword-dance had halted--the flashing marvel of shield
and sword and winged feet had stopped, statue-like, for a minute.
And then again he was leader of men--not of revellers.
Suddenly at the head of every warrior, every chief in the hall--as they
banded themselves together in passionate devotion to him.
In a moment of time he became chief and leader of all about him. Not,
as it were, of his own free will, but of some power that emanated from
him--mysterious--intoxicating. All flocked towards him. The popular
cries of Cunedda and Kymry were yoked with those of Cormac and The
Black Horse. Men’s hearts kindled anew--Bret and Pict and Scot vowed
brotherhood for aye! But when they went forth, it was to confront
rumour of battle instead of battle itself!
The wild alarm that two bodies of Saxons were closing upon the Fair,
had arisen at the news that two bands of men, in the darkness, were
approaching on either side. Panic often seized the people, at the least
cause, since that fearful day when the Saxons had burst on the southern
plain like an angry sea; and, beating around the walls of Sarum, had at
length overcome the mighty fortress.
The approaching men proved to be serfs and herdsmen of Celtic race; but
they were the bearers of ill tidings.
From two directions came the grave news that the Roman city,
Viriconium, had fallen into the hands of the Saxons, under the two
dread brothers--Cutha and Ceawlin; that its inhabitants had been put to
the sword, and its buildings to the flame.
The awful tidings seemed to inspire Cormac with new hope and courage.
“To the South!” he cried. “To the Saxons!”