“I jest not, Uther Pendragon. Get you down and tether your horse; go in amid yon trees and look into the forest. I swear on the cross you shall see what you desire.”
Pelleas gave the knight a long look, said nothing, dismounted, threw the bridle over a bough. Then he thrust his spear into the ground and went bareheaded in among the trees. Standing under the shadow of a great oak, he peered long into the glooms, saw nothing living but a rabbit feeding in the grass.
Suddenly a voice called to him.
“Pelleas, Pelleas.”
It was a wondrous cry, clear and plaintive, yet tremulous with feeling. It rang through the woods like silver, bringing back the picture of a solemn beech wood under moonlight, and a girl tied naked to the trunk of a tree. A great lustre of awe swept over Pelleas’s face; his eyes were big and luminous as the eyes of a blind man; he groped with his hands as he passed back under the May trees to the valley.
In the long grass stood a woman in armour, her helmet thrown aside, and her red gold hair pouring marvellous in the sunlight over her violet surcoat. Her head was thrown back so as to show the full sweep of her shapely throat; her face was very pale under her parted hair, while her lids drooped over eyes that seemed to swim with unshed tears. Her hands, slightly outstretched, quivered as with a shuddering impulse from her heart, and her half-parted lips looked as though they were moulded to breathe forth a moan.
Pelleas stood and stared at her as a dead man might look at God. He drew near step by step, his face white as Igraine’s, his eyes as deep with desire as hers. Neither of them said a word, but stood and looked into each other’s faces as into heaven—awed, solemnised, silenced. Above them towered the green woods; the meadows rippled from them with their broidery of flowers; the scent of the white May swept fragrant on the air. Solitude was with them, and the mild smile of Nature glimmered with the sunlight over the trees.
Igraine spoke first.
“Pelleas,” was all she said.
The man gave a great sob, fell on his knees, and would have kissed her surcoat. Igraine bent down to him with eyes that shone like two deep wells of love. Both her hands were upon Pelleas’s shoulders, his face was turned to hers.