A stout and ungainly being appeared round a thicket of bay trees, like
some stout god Pan footing it in Arcady. It was the figure of a little
man with a toad-like face, protruding blue eyes, and a great slit of a
mouth. A double chin flapped to and fro under his ugly but good-tempered
countenance, and his legs were bowed like the staves of a cask.
Pandart, good soul, was a mild man, a man of milk, who feared the Bishop
and Ogier his knight. Slow of wit, he took life calmly, and was amazed
at nothing so long as he had food. He stopped short when he saw Tristan
standing by the White Heretic of the Seven Streams, and blinked his eyes
under their penthouses of fat.
The salutation that was accorded him hardly tallied with the good man’s
temper. Waddling over the grass like a fat and amiable dog, he was taken
of a sudden by the throat and hurled flat upon his back. A whirlwind
seemed to fill the place. Above him lowered a pale, set face, while a
sword’s point rested over his heart.
Pandart, shrewdly scared and beaten for breath, lay and blinked at the
man who held the sword. His shoulder had been disjointed in the fall,
his arm lying twisted under his body; yet, despite the pain of it, he
dared not stir, seeing that the bare steel weighed on his ribs. The
silver circlet was thrust into his face. Pandart’s eyes seemed bewitched
by the thing, while Tristan watched him as a dog watches a dog.
Slowly he forced the truth from the man concerning Columbe, whom he had
sought from over the sea. Under the point of Tristan’s sword, Pandart
told what had passed in the hermitage, Columbe’s coming and her shaming
there, and, last, how she had died by Ogier’s hand, to make way for
Rosamunde of the Seven Streams. It was a grim tale for a brother’s ears,
but Tristan heard it to the end.
Then it was that Rosamunde, who watched him, saw his face become as the
face of a devil. He reared up his sword over Pandart’s carcass, heeding
not his whimpering nor his outstretched hand. Rosamunde, waking as from
a dream, sprang forward and seized on Tristan’s arm.
“Slay him not,” she said. “Shall the man suffer for the master’s sin?”
Tristan flashed round on her.
“Betwixt them they have slain my sister,” he cried. “Am I a woman to
snivel and forgive?”
Without flinching, she met the anger in his eyes, keeping her hold upon
his powerful arm.
“Has not Ogier perished at your hand?”
“God did deliver him——”
“Not against this old man can you lift your sword.”
Pandart had slipped aside from under Tristan’s feet. He struggled to his
knees and knelt there in the grass, his right arm hanging helpless from
the shoulder. Tristan, looking at the grey head and the wrinkled face,
relented somewhat, remembering his own sire.
“You shall judge,” he said to Rosamunde, giving her the sword.
She took it and set the point upon the grass.
“Speak with him yet further,” she said. “Have pity on his grey hairs,
for the old man has been kind to me.”
She left them there together, while Pandart rose up from the grass and
stood before Tristan, holding his maimed arm at the elbow. The anger was
melting out of Tristan’s heart, and grief gathered in him as he thought
of Columbe’s golden head lying tarnished under the sods.
“Show me the grave,” was all he said.
Pandart, wincing as he walked, led Tristan amid the flowers and fruit
trees to where a great cedar stood, and a low green mound received the
sunlight streaming through the boughs. Tall cypresses were crowded near,
like mutes standing about a grave, while the great cedar’s vaulted gloom
made the place solemn as a shrine.
When Tristan had looked long on the green mound in silence, he
questioned Pandart further, and received the truth. Ogier had slain
Columbe at the Bishop’s bidding, even to make room for Rosamunde, whom
they had brought from Agravale. They had buried Columbe there under the
light of the moon, with the red rose of death over her heart. Tristan
said hardly a word, but suffered Pandart to pass back to the house,
where his dame, a thin woman with a querulous face, cringed and waited
for him behind the door. Pandart went in and bade her swathe his arm.
Meanwhile Rosamunde walked alone on the terrace-way where the oleanders
bloomed in their stone jars. She was a strange woman, this Lady of the
Seven Streams, devout yet passionate, gracious yet ever too enamoured of
her pride. Perverse and incomprehensible, half shrew, half saint,
beautiful even in her perversity, she was destined to pain those who
gave her love. Jealous of her liberty, she would go shackled by a whim,
provided the whim was of her own forging. Tristan she had believed dead
these many months, and Tristan loved her. As a woman, she knew that
well. Yet she had ordained it in her heart that Tristan’s love was mere
summer madness, a boy’s love, beneath her pride.
Columbe his sister, then, was dead. Of the white-faced child from Purple
Isle Rosamunde had had no knowledge. She had often gazed at the
fresh-tufted mound under the cedar, but Pandart had kept silence and
betrayed nothing. She felt a woman’s pity for this blue-eyed child reft
from her home, bruised by the passions of a ruffian crew, done to death
in this wild hermitage. The truth revealed to her her own real peril and
the grim depths of Jocelyn’s perfidy.
Anon, she left the terrace and passed towards the cedar. Infinite
thought dwelt in her large eyes, a beautiful wistfulness upon her mouth.
Coming to the cypresses, she stood to listen. A sound, deep and
significant, quickened the look of pity on her face. She stood
open-mouthed, listening to the sound of a strong man weeping. There was
an almost godly pathos in those tears. The truth thrilled Rosamunde to
the core of her red heart, made her lips quiver, her eyes grow hot.
Tristan weeping! This great warm-hearted creature broken down by the
touch of death! She listened with tingling ears, half ashamed of prying
upon such sorrow, for the sound awed her utterly, dethroned the pride
from out her soul. All the deep instincts of her womanhood awoke,
tremulous and tender, poignant with another’s pain.
By sudden impulse she pushed past the cypresses, stood under the huge
shadows of the cedar. Tristan was lying full length upon the grave, his
face hidden within his arms. She saw his shoulders rise and fall, and he
still had the silver circlet gripped in his right hand. Rosamunde stood
impotent, hesitating to violate such grief as this.
Presently the man grew calmer, and the passion seemed to pass like a
storm over the sea. Perhaps some spirit voice stilled the deep waters,
the cry of the Christ to foaming Galilee. Rosamunde, moving over the
grass, stooped, touched Tristan’s shoulder with her hand.
He twisted round like one smitten with a hot iron, and there was a
shadow as of anger on his face. It was shame to a strong man such as
Tristan to be caught with tears upon his cheeks. He rose up and knelt
beside the grave, propping himself upon one arm. Rosamunde’s hand was
still upon his shoulder; his other arm he held before his eyes.
“Madame,” he said sullenly, “must you stare upon my weakness thus?”
“Tristan——”
“Leave me.”
“Ah, may I not share your sorrow?”
She knelt down suddenly at his side, even like a mother, and drew the
arm from before his face. He did not resist her, though he frowned a
little.
“Tristan, you have been noble towards me in your faith,” she said; “may
I not show a woman’s gratitude? Is there shame in receiving this?”
He looked in her eyes, but did not look for long, for there was still
some bitterness within his heart. Was it not for Rosamunde that Columbe
his sister had been done to death?
“Rosamunde,” he said, speaking slowly her name, “the wounded bear must
lick his wounds and growl out his fury in some lonely den.”
“Ah,” she pleaded, “you grudge my gratitude to you for all.”
“Madame, I cannot parcel out my grief.”
“What of your vengeance—can I not share in that?”
It was a lash of the tongue suited to rouse such a man as Tristan. The
speech was quick and swiftly sped. Tristan sprang from the grass like
one who heard a faint voice calling from the grave.
“Vengeance—God hear me—yes!” he cried.
He stood there above Rosamunde and the grave, breathing heavily, the
muscles showing in his powerful neck, his face transfigured for the
moment. Taking the snake of silver, he wound it about his wrist, made a
great vow with his hands uplifted to high Heaven.
“Never shall this poor relic leave this arm,” he said, “till it has
hurled down Agravale into the dust.”