The boat sped swiftly, with Siegmund sitting in the stern. His yellow locks streamed over his stalwart shoulders, and his face was like that of some eager god as he noted Chrysolite’s beauty. The maiden saw his approach; and now the glad notes of her exquisite song changed to a mournful rhythm. She was chanting the words that her mother had breathed to her seven daughters as she lay a’dying:
‘Women ye, my daughters fair
(Cloudless spreads the sky);
But when menace fills the air,
Fées, as once was I.
Slender arm shall change that day
Into snow-white plume;
Winged as birds, haste swift away
From thy threatening doom!’
As the last words left her sorrowful lips, Chrysolite’s sisters gathered round her; the boat’s keel grated on the sand, and Siegmund sprang eagerly forward. At the same moment the Seven Fair Queens of Pirou raised their arms, and instantly these changed, before his eyes, to fluttering wings. High in the air mounted the maidens, and to the bewildered gaze of Siegmund they were nought but a line of snow-white birds flying westward in single file high up in the sky.
When Siegmund had somewhat recovered from his amazement, he and his followers sacked the castle, and pillaged the surrounding country; it did them but little good, for a storm blew up as they sailed back northward, and the ships that carried the stolen treasure were wrecked on the rocks. As for the Seven Fair Queens, they mated with Fées, and were glad as the morning. Every year as spring comes round, they return to Pirou with their numerous descendants, in the form of a flock of wild geese, and take possession of the nests which they have hollowed out in the crumbling walls. They also appear when a child is born to the house of Pirou; if it be a daughter, and Fate has destined her for a nun, one sits apart in a corner of the courtyard, and sighs as if in sore distress. If a son is born, the male birds display their plumage, and show by their mien that they rejoice.”
Méllisande rose from her throne of ferns, “It will be twilight soon,” she said, “and we must go. See! the mists are already rising in the valley, and the night-birds awake and call. Farewell, dear Christmas Child, farewell!”