ow's rites. That day, therefore, through you
shall be unobserved. It is strange that a mere Saxon warrior, with
no thought beyond his feasting and fighting, should set his will
against mine and prove the stronger. Now I wit well that this is
some fated day, and that herein lies some omen of what shall be."

Then he turned a little from me, and looked at the shadow which had
passed altogether from the altar stone now, and half to himself he
said:

"I had thought that this menhir had fallen when this came to pass.
But maybe the old prophecy meant that not until it fell we must
cease our rites. But that was not how we read the words of old
time. If we read them wrong, what else have we mistaken?"

"Morfed," I broke in on his musings, "end this idle talk, and tell
me of Owen. Then I will go hence and leave you to work what you
will here. I had no wish to disturb your rites, whatsoever they
were. If aught has happened amiss, it was your own fault, not mine.
Your own deed brought me here."

But he paid not the least heed to me, and yet I thought that he
tried to put me off, as it were, by seeming wrapt in thoughts.

"Surely it should have fallen on this day that sees the end, even
as runs the ancient prophecy--'When the pool shall whelm the stone,
Druid rite and chant are done.' But it has not fallen, and the end
is not yet. But what shall amend this fault?"

I had listened for some sound from Howel and Evan, but since the
footsteps passed up the glen I had heard none until this moment.
Then came one cry from far upward, and silence thereafter. Morfed
heard it and looked up, setting at the same time his hand on the
edge of the altar stone.

The golden sickle flashed as he did so, and at that, swift as the
flash itself, the adder stiffened its coils, and its head flew
back, baring the long fangs, and twice it struck the hand deeply.

"I am answered," Morfed said quietly. "My life shall amend."

But he never moved his hand, and the adder swiftly slid from off
the stone and sought some hiding place in the loose rocks at the
cliff foot, and the priest watched it go, motionless.

"Look you, Saxon," he said, lifting his eyes to me; "now I must
die, and with me ends the line of the Druids of this land of the
olden faith. Yonder in the Cymric land beyond the narrow sea whence
Howel came it shall not be lost. The hills shall keep it, and there
the slow mind of the Saxon shall not slay the old powers as you
have slain them