“Yonder—heaven calls,” he said.
“Go, sire.”
“I must be near her—through the night.”
“And lo!—the moon stands full upon the hills. You shall bless me yet.”
Dim were the woods that autumn evening, dim and deep with an ecstasy of gloom. Stars flickered in the heavens; the moon came, and broidered the trees with silver flame. A primæval calm lay heavy upon the bosom of the night. The spectral branches of the trees were rigid and prayerful towards the sky.
Uther had left Merlin gazing out upon the shimmering sea. The voice called him from the woods with plaintive peals of song. The man followed, holding to a grass-grown track that curled purposeless into the gloom. Moonlight and shadow were alternate upon his armour. Hope and despair were mimicked upon his face. His soul leapt voiceless and inarticulate into the darkened shrine of prayer.
The voice came to him clearer in the forest calm. The gulf had narrowed; the words flew as over the waters of death. They were pure, yet reasonless, passionate, yet void, words barbed with an utter pathos that wounded desire.
For an hour the King followed in the woods, drawing ever nearer, waxing great with prayer. Anon the voice failed him by a little stream that quivered dimly through the grass. A stillness that was ghostly held the woods. The moonlight seemed to shudder on the trees. A stupendous stupor weighed upon the world.
A hollow glade opened sudden in the woods, a white gulf in the forest’s gloom. Water shone there, a mere, rush-ringed, and full of mysterious shadows, girded by the bronzed foliage of stately beeches. Moss grew thick about the roots; dead leaves covered the grass.