But the tongue of this errant knight would not be stayed; and his loud musical voice swept over the waters, evidently attracting her notice, and for the first time. She drew back her dark hair, gazing on them for a moment, when she suddenly disappeared. Harrington was sure she had sunk; but a jutting peninsula of sand was near enough to have deceived him, especially through the twilight, which now drew on rapidly.
"And thou hast spoken to her!" said he gravely; "then be the answer thine!"
"A woman's answer were easier parried than a sword-thrust, methinks; and that I have hitherto escaped."
"Let us be gone speedily. I like not yon angry star spying out our path through these wilds."
"Thou didst use to laugh at my superstitions; but thine own, I guess, are too chary to be meddled with."
"Laugh at me an' thou wilt," said Harrington: "when Master Lilly cast my horoscope he bade me ever to eschew travel when Mars comes to his southing, conjunct with the Pleiades, at midnight—the hour of my birth. Last night, as I looked out from where I lay at Preston, methought the red warrior shot his spear athwart their soft scintillating light; and as I gazed, his ray seemed to ride half-way across the heavens. Again he is rising yonder."
"And his meridian will happen at midnight?"
"Even so," replied Harrington.
"Then gallop on. I'd rather make my supper with the fair dames at Lydiate than in a mermaid's hall."
But their progress was a work of no slight difficulty, and even danger. Occasionally plunging to the knees in a deep bog, then wading to the girth in a hillock of sand and prickly bent grass (the Arundo arenaria, so plentiful on these coasts), the horses were scarcely able to keep their footing—yet were they still urged on. Every step was expected to bring them within sight of some habitation.