Decorated thus, and with sparkling eyes, she turned and faced the cave again. Soundlessly she began to dance.
At first it was the mere joy of her laughing glee. Soon, she hoped Alan or Sorcha would wake. Ah, then, how she would laugh, to see them stare confusedly at her, dancing there in the sunlight!
But as she wavered to and fro in the sunsea, a dreamy pleasure moved her to half-forgetfulness of where she was. A mavis on the rowan over the cave began to sing, the strange late song that sometimes wells forth in silent August; at first, long, sweet, vibrant notes, then a swift gurgling music, and then, as his heart warmed against the sun, more and more wildly sweet, till the hot air swung with the intoxication of his rapture.
More and more, too, was Oona rapt as she wavered to and fro. The swift rhythm of her joyous dance wrought her as with a spell. A dream lay in her eyes, now set far away—far away, where Angus Óg was, and where the sun rose and the moon waxed and waned to the singing of the white merle.
The sunlight seemed to drift her onward, as though she were a dancing wave on the forehead of the tide. Soon she was past the cave, and still, as the sunbeams flickered, she leaped and swayed, rapt in an ecstasy beyond thought or heed.
Suddenly, the thrush ceased. There was a whirr of wings: then a sharp, quickly repeated strident cry.
Another second, and Oona was a laughing child again, crouched low in the bracken. Alan or Sorcha was awake, and had stirred!
Ah, no, she thought, she would not let them see her now. True, they might hear her, where she lay panting like a young bird escaped from a hawk! As soundlessly as she could, for her quick breathing and the rustle of the bracken, she half-crawled, half-ran, back the way she had come. Soon she was safe, for the pines enclosed her, and then the beeches and birks near the water-slope. From behind a vast beech-bole she watched to see if she were pursued, or seen. But no one came. All was as before: only, the thrush did not venture back to the rowan, which now threw its flickering fingerlike shadows on the smooth turf below, in front of the cave.
VIII
Already the breath of the day was windlessly hot.