There was a certain flavour in the last remark that made the men roar.
“I wonder where they’ll bury her,” said the captain.
“Throw her into the sea.”
“Gorlois’s little wench won’t weep her eyes out.”
Malmain smote a stupendous hip, and tumbled to the notion. The settle shook and creaked under her as though in protest.
“We’ll all get married,” she said; “Mark, my man, don’t blush.”
Babylon was compassed round! The same evening a soldier on the walls of Tintagel saw a dim throng of sails rise whitely out of the west. The streaks of canvas stood above the sea touched by the light of the setting sun. There was something ominous in these gleaming sails sweeping in a wide half-circle out of the unknown. A motley throng of castle folk gathered on the walls. Men spoke of the barbarians and of Ireland as they watched the ships rising solemn and silent from the west. Gorlois himself climbed up into a tower and gazed long at these sails whose haven was as yet unknown. He learnt little by the scrutiny. The ships had hardly risen above the purple twilight when night came and shrouded the whole in vague and impenetrable gloom.
Gorlois ordered the castle into a state of siege, and with the night an atmosphere of suspense gathered about Tintagel.
About midnight some dozen points of fire burst out redly on the hills. Sudden and sinister they shone like beacon fires, but by whom lit the castle folks could not tell. Men idled on the walls, shoulder to shoulder, talking in undertones, with now and again a bluff oath to invoke courage. The black infinite, above, around, seemed to hem the place as eternity hems the soul. War and death lurked in the dark, and on the rocks the sea kept up a perpetual moan.