not till he had fled thereto.

In the meantime, Aurelius, the rightful king, was hailed with joy by the
Britons, who flocked to his standard, and prayed to be led against the
Saxons. But he, till he had first killed Vortigern, would begin no other
war. He marched therefore to Cambria, and came before the tower which the
usurper had built. Then, crying out to all his knights, "Avenge ye on him
who hath ruined Britain and slain my father and your king!" he rushed with
many thousands at the castle walls. But, being driven back again and yet
again, at length he thought of fire, and ordered blazing brands to be cast
into the building from all sides. These finding soon a proper fuel, ceased
not to rage, till spreading to a mighty conflagration, they burned down
the tower and Vortigern within it.

Then did Aurelius turn his strength against Hengist and the Saxons, and,
defeating them in many places, weakened their power for a long season, so
that the land had peace.

Anon the king, making many journeys to and fro, restoring ruined churches
and, creating order, came to the monastery near Salisbury, where all those
British knights lay buried who had been slain there by the treachery of
Hengist. For when in former times Hengist had made a solemn truce with
Vortigern, to meet in peace and settle terms, whereby himself and all his
Saxons should depart from Britain, the Saxon soldiers carried every one of
them beneath his garment a long dagger, and, at a given signal, fell upon
the Britons, and slew them, to the number of nearly five hundred.

The sight of the place where the dead lay moved Aurelius to great sorrow,
and he cast about in his mind how to make a worthy tomb over so many noble
martyrs, who had died there for their country.

When he had in vain consulted many craftsmen and builders, he sent, by the
advice of the archbishop, for Merlin, and asked him what to do. "If you
would honour the burying-place of these men," said Merlin, "with an
everlasting monument, send for the Giants' Dance which is in Killaraus, a
mountain in Ireland; for there is a structure of stone there which none of
this age could raise without a perfect knowledge of the arts. They are
stones of a vast size and wondrous nature, and if they can be placed here
as they are there, round this spot of ground, they will stand for ever."

At these words of Merlin, Aurelius burst into laughter, and said, "How is
it possible to remove such vast stones from so g