II
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.
When he ceased, a voice came out of the hollow oak—
“Play me a death-song, Mûrta mac Mûrta mac Neisa.”
Mûrta smiled, and he played again the song of love.
After that there was silence for a brief while. Then Mûrta played upon his reed for the time it takes a heron to mount her seventh spiral. Then he ceased, and threw away the reed, and stood erect, staring into the greenness. In his eyes was a strange shine. He sang—
Out of the wild hills I am hearing a voice, O Cathal!
And I am thinking it is the voice of a bleeding sword.
Whose is that sword? I know it well: it is the sword of the Slayer—
Him that is called Death, and the song that it sings I know:—
O where is Cathal mac Art, that is the cup for the thirst of my lips?
Out of the cold grayness of the sea I am hearing, O Cathal,
I am hearing a wave-muffled voice, as of one who drowns in the depths:
Whose is that voice? I know it well: it is the voice of the Shadow—
Her that is called the Grave, and the song that she sings I know:—
O where is Cathal mac Art, he has warmth for the chill that I have?
Out of the hot greenness of the wood I am hearing, O Cathal,
I am hearing a rustling step, as of one stumbling blind.
Whose is that rustling step? I know it well: the rustling walk of the Blind One—
She that is called Silence, and the song that she sings I know:—
O where is Cathal mac Art, that has tears to water my stillness?
After that there was silence. Mûrta moved away. When he sat by Diarmid and ate, there was no word spoken. Diarmid did not look at him, for he had sung a song of death, and the shadow was upon him. He kept his gaze upon the moss: if he raised his eyes might he not see the Slayer, or the Shadow or the Blind One?
Noon came. None drew nigh: not a face was seen shadowily afar off. Sometimes the hoofs of the deer rustled among the bracken. The snarling of young foxes in an oak-root hollow was like a red pulse in the heat. At times, in the sheer abyss of blue sky to the north, a hawk suspended: in the white-blaze southerly a blotch like swirled foam appeared for a moment at long intervals, as a gannet swung from invisible pinnacles of air to the invisible sea.
The afternoon drowsed through the sunflood. The green leaves grew golden, saturated with light. At sundown a flight of wild doves rose out of the pines, wheeled against the shine of the west and flashed out of sight, flames of purple and rose, of foam-white and pink.
The gloaming came, silverly. The dew glistened on the fronds of the ferns, in the cups of the moss. From glade to glade the cuckoos called. The stars emerged delicately, as the eyes of fawns shining through the greengloom of the forest. Once more the moon snowed the easter frondage of the pines and oaks.
No one came nigh. Not a sound had sighed from the oak since Mûrta had sung at the goldening of the day. At sunset Mûrta had risen, to lean, intent, against the vast bole. His keen ears caught the jar of a beetle burrowing beneath the bark. There was no other sound.
At the fall of dark the watchers heard the confused far noise of a festival. It waned as a lost wind. Dim veils of cloud obscured the moon; a low rainy darkness suspended over the earth.
Thus went the second day and the second night.
When, after the weary vigil of the hours, dawn came at last, Mûrta rose and struck the oak with a stone.
“Cathal!” he cried, “Cathal!”
There was no sound: not a stir, not a sigh.
“Cathal! Cathal!”
Mûrta looked at Diarmid. Then, seeing his own thought in the eyes of his friend he returned to his side.
“The Blind One has been here,” said Diarmid in a low voice.
At noon there was thunder, and great heat. The noise of rustling wings filled the underwood.
Diarmid fell into a deep sleep. When the thunder had travelled into the hills, and a soft rain fell, Mûrta climbed into the branches of the oak. He stared down into the hollow, but could see nothing save a green dusk that became brown shadow, and brown shadow that grew into a blackness.
“Cathal!” he whispered.
Not a breath of sound ascended like smoke.
“Cathal! Cathal!”
The slow drip of the rain slipped and pattered among the leaves. The cry of a sea-bird flying inland came mournfully across the woods. A distant clang, as of a stricken anvil, iterated from the barren mountain beyond the forest.
“Cathal! Cathal!”
Mûrta broke a straight branch, stripped it of the leaves, and, forcing the thicker end downward, let it fall sheer.
It struck with a dull, soft thud. He listened: there was not a sound.
“A quiet sleep to you, monk,” he whispered, and slipped down through the boughs, and was beside Diarmid again.
At dusk the rain ceased. A cool green freshness came into the air. The stars were as wind-whirled fruit blown upward from the tree-tops. The moon, full-orbed and with a pulse of flame, led a tide of soft light across the brown shores of the world.
The vigils of the watchers were over. Mûrta and Diarmid rose. Without a word they moved across the glade: the faint rustle of their feet stirred the bracken: then they left the under-growth and were among the pines. Their shadows lapsed into the obscure wilderness. A doe, heavy with fawn, lay down among the dewy fern, and was at peace there.