Not till evening had come did Tristan enter upon the fulfilling of the vow that he had sworn before Rosamunde over Columbe’s grave. His men were camped about the island and under the branches of the spectral trees. The west was an open gate of gold, the dead forest wreathed in rivers of mist. The island, with the dark foliage of its trees and shrubs, lay like some dusky emerald sewn on the bosom of a sable robe.
Blanche the Duchess’s pavilion had been pitched on the stretch of grass before the house. Tristan had sought solitude in the room where Rosamunde had been lodged in the summer months that were gone. He passed an hour alone in that chamber, pacing from wall to wall, thinking of the task that lay before him. Never did his heart flinch more than from that ordeal of death, the opening of his sister’s grave. He had searched the room, and had discovered in a cupboard an old robe of Rosamunde’s, even the very one she had worn the night the Papists ravaged Ronan’s town. Tristan took it, pressed the hem to his lips. The robe should cover Columbe’s body, love’s robe for a lost love.
Night came, and torches were kindled. Tristan, stern and white of face, knelt down and prayed, and passed out from the house. In her pavilion he found Blanche seated in state, her coronet circling her silvery hair, her knights round her as for some solemn council. The garden was thronged with armed men, their helmets gleaming in the light of the torches.
Tristan stood alone before the Duchess’s tent, and bent the knee to her as one who serves.
“Madame,” he said, in the hearing of all, “I go to uncover my sister’s grave.”
“Sir Tristan,” she answered him with steady voice, “God comfort you in this your hour of trial. We would not gape nor gaze on your grief. Sirs, stand by me; let no man move save Sir Tristan gives him word.”
The light in the west still wavered through the gloom. To the north rose the dome of the great cedar, its green boughs sweeping even to the ground. It stood like a green temple built by Nature for the kindly shading of a woodland grave. Tristan kissed the Duchess’s hand, and chose ten of Samson’s men who had served him of old in the Seven Streams.
Hid by the cypresses that closed the hollow, they passed with two torches under the cedar. By the dark trunk stood Jocelyn of Agravale, clad in his pontificals as Tristan had ordered. The men went to work on the grass mound. Near by lay the two coffins side by side, the Banner of the Golden Keys covering the larger. While five men opened Columbe’s grave, the rest dug a fresh trench under the cedar.
Tristan stood by the mound and watched their labours, the torchlight playing upon his face, wreathing grim shadows about his figure. There was a terrible calm in the eyes that never wavered under the arch of the casque. Soon the soiled fold of a gown came to light, then a little hand, frail and wasted. Soon they had taken Columbe from the grave, after covering the face that Tristan might not see it. The man shaded his eyes with his great forearm as they laid the body in the coffin, and bade one of the soldiers cut from her head a long lock of her golden hair. Soiled with earth as it was, he laid the lock upon his lips, knotted it with hand and teeth about his arm. He had taken the silver snake from off his wrist and tossed the bracelet into the coffin, which he bade the men cover with Rosamunde’s robe.
Not one of those who laboured had spoken. In silence the whole host stood to arms as the moon came up over the blackened hills. Yet when Columbe was borne from under the cedar, a hundred trumpets challenged the night, their wild clamour echoing amid the woods.