Armorel of Lyonesse: A Romance of To-day

by Walter Besant

Roland Lee laughed. 'We came first of all,' he said, turning to Armorel, 'in order to thank you for——'

'Oh! you thanked me last night. Besides it was Peter——'

'No, no. I refuse to believe in Peter.'

'Well, do not let us say any more about it. Come with me.'

The landing-place of Samson is a flat beach, covered with a fine white sand and strewn with little shells—yellow and grey, green and blue. Behind the beach is a low bank on which grow the sea-holly, the sea-lavender, the horned poppy, and the spurge, and behind the bank stretches a small plain, low and sandy, raised above the high tide by no more than a foot or two. Armorel led the way across this plain to the foot of the northern hill. It is a rough and rugged hill, wild and uncultivated. The slope facing the south is covered with gorse and fern, the latter brown and yellow in September. Among the fern at this season stood the tall dead stalks of foxglove. Here and there were patches of short turf set about with the withered flowers of the sea-pink, and the long branches of the bramble lay trailing over the ground. The hand of some prehistoric giant has sprinkled the slopes of this hill with boulders of granite: they are piled above each other so as to make carns, headlands, and capes with strange resemblances and odd surprises. Upon the top they found a small plateau sloping gently to the north.

'See!' said Armorel. 'This is the finest thing we have to show on Samson, or on any of the islands. This is the burial-place of the kings. Here are their tombs.'

'What kings?' asked Dick, looking about him. 'Where are the tombs?'

'The kings,' Roland repeated; 'there can be no other kings. These are their tombs. Do not interrupt.'

'The ancient kings,' Armorel replied, with historic precision. 'These mounds are their tombs. See—one—two—half a dozen of them are here. Only kings had barrows raised over them. Did you expect graves and headstones, Dick Stephenson?'

'Oh, these are barrows, are they?' he replied, in some confusion. A man of the world does not expect to be caught in ignorance by the solitary inhabitant of a desert island.