‘He is asleep,’ said the little waves. ‘We will wake him.’
But Marinell lay cold and still, and the blood dripped and dripped on to the golden sand.
Then the waves grew frightened, and the sea-birds screamed, ‘Marinell is dead, is dead ... dead ... dead....’
So the news came to his mother Cymoënt. Cymoënt and her sisters were playing by a pond near the sea, round which grew nodding yellow daffodils. They were picking the daffodils and making them into garlands for their fair heads, when they heard the message of the birds, ‘Marinell is dead, dead, dead.’
Cymoënt tore the daffodils from her hair, and fell on the ground in a faint. All her sister nymphs wailed and wept and threw their gay flowers away, and Cymoënt lay with white face, and her head on the poor, torn daffodils.
But the knight was Britomart, the fair lady with a man’s armour and a man’s heart (page 92)
At last she came out of her faint, and asked for her chariot, and all her sisters sent for their chariots too.
A team of dolphins drew the chariot of Cymoënt, and they were trained so well that they cut through the water as swiftly as swallows, and did not even leave a track of white foam behind. Other fishes drew the chariots of the other nymphs, and Neptune, King of all the Seas, was so sorry for the sorrow of Cymoënt and the other Nereids, that he told his waves to be gentle, and let them pass peacefully to where Marinell lay on the golden strand.
When they got near where he lay, they got out of their chariots, for they feared that the dolphins and other fishes might get bruised and hurt by the rocks and pebbles on the shore. And with their strong white arms they swiftly swam to where Marinell lay, still and silent in his blood.