With a sudden gibber of laughter and a swirl of pipes the throng of lights seemed to seethe to the very margin of the clearing. Queer phantastic shapes showed amid the trees, and the great circle grew wide with light, and the grey cromlechs surprised in sleep by the glare and piping. At that very moment Igraine had a thought of some one looking deep into her eyes, of a will, a power, streaming in upon her like sunlight into a sleepy pool. Her desire went from the man on the black horse into the square shadow of the great central cromlech, where an indefinite influence seemed to lurk. Looking long under the roofing stone, she grew aware of a tall something standing there, of a pair of eyes like the eyes of a panther, of a lean white hand moving in the shadows.
The eyes under the cromlech seemed to follow Igraine like fire, and to burn in upon her a foreign influence. Rebellious and wondering, she stiffened herself against a spiritual combat that seemed moving upon her out of the dark. She could have smitten the eyes that stared her down, and yet the magnetic stupor of them kindled up things in her heart that were strange and newly sensuous. She felt her strength sway as though her soul were being lifted from her, and she was warmed from top to toe like one who has taken wine, and whose being swims into an idyllic glorification of the senses. Again her desire seemed turned to the man in red harness, yet when she looked the saddle was empty, and the horse held by an armed servant, who wore a wolfs head for covering. Still mute with fear, desire, and wonder, she saw a tall figure move into the full glare of the torches, a figure in red harness with a shield of green, and a red dragon thereon, and with head unhelmed. The armour was like the armour of Pelleas, but the face was the face of the man Gorlois.
And now the eyes under the shadow of the cromlech were full and strong upon Igraine. Breathing fast with a hand at her throat she stepped back from Gorlois—hesitated—stood still. She was very white, and her eyes were big and sightless like the eyes of one walking in a dream. For all her strength, her scorn, and the tricking of her heart, she was being swept like a cloud into the embraces of the sun. Reason, power, love, sank away and became as nothing. A shudder passed over her. Presently her hands dropped limp as broken wings, and her body began to sway like a tall lily in a breeze. A gradual stupor saw her cataleptic; she stood impotent, played upon by the promptings of another soul.
Gorlois went near to her with hands outstretched, stooping to look into her face. A sudden light kindled in her eyes, her lips parted, and new life flooded red into her cheeks as at the beck of love. She bent to Gorlois full of a gracious eagerness, a wistful desire that made her face golden as dawn. Her hand sought his, while the shadowy shape under the cromlech watched them with never-wavering eyes. Gorlois’s arms were round her now all wreathed in her hair; her face was turned to his; her hands were clasped upon his neck. Another moment and he had touched her lips with his.
A sound of flutes, the tinkling of a bell, and a solemn company came threading from the trees, guests, acolytes, torch-bearers, in glittering cloth of gold, with a great crucifix to lead them. Gorlois and Igraine were hand in hand near the stone that hid the frame of Merlin. A priest in a gorgeous cape drew near, and began his patter. The vows were taken, the pact sealed, with the noise of a chant and music. Thus under the benedictions of the great trees, and the spell of Merlin, Gorlois and Igraine were made man and wife.
BOOK III
THE WAR IN WALES