.
And the people echoed the cry. Then the fury of Siror was at its height,
and waving his sword above his head he plunged into the crowd, "Thy
blood, baseborn, or mine!"

"So be it!" answered Morven, quailing not. "People, smite the
blasphemer! Hark how the river pours down upon your children and your
hearths! On, on, or ye perish!"

And Siror fell, pierced by five hundred spears.

"Smite! smite!" cried Morven, as the chiefs of the royal house gathered
round the king. And the clash of swords, and the gleam of spears, and
the cries of the dying, and the yell of the trampling people mingled
with the roar of the elements, and the voices of the rushing wave.

Three hundred of the chiefs perished that night by the swords of their
own tribe; and the last cry of the victors was, "Morven the prophet!
_Morven the king!_"

And the son of Osslah, seeing the waves now spreading over the valley,
led Orna his wife, and the men of Oestrich, their women, and their
children, to a high mount, where they waited the dawning sun. But Orna
sat apart and wept bitterly, for her brothers were no more, and her race
had perished from the earth. And Morven sought to comfort her in vain.

When the morning rose, they saw that the river had overspread the
greater part of the city, and now stayed its course among the hollows of
the vale. Then Morven said to the people, "The star-kings are avenged,
and their wrath appeased. Tarry only here until the waters have melted
into the crevices of the soil." And on the fourth day they returned to
the city, and no man dared to name another, save Morven, as the king.

But Morven retired into his cave and mused deeply; and then assembling
the people, he gave them new laws; and he made them build a mighty
temple in honour of the stars, and made them heap within it all that the
tribe held most precious. And he took unto him fifty children from the
most famous of the tribe; and he took also ten from among the men who
had served him best, and he ordained that they should serve the stars in
the great temple: and Morven was their chief. And he put away the crown
they pressed upon him, and he chose from among the elders a new king.
And he ordained that henceforth the servants only of the stars in the
great temple should elect the king and the rulers, and hold council,
and proclaim war; but he suffered the king to feast, and to hunt, and to
make merry in the banquet-halls. And Morven built altars in the temple,
an