en out flashed a long
dagger from his robes, and he flew on me, thinking, no doubt, that
I must needs turn my head to watch the fall of his sickle, and I
was ready for him. He was no warrior, and his hand was too high,
but he was a priest, and on him I would not use my weapon. I swung
aside from him, striking up his arm, and his blind rush carried him
against the menhir, so that the blow which was meant for me fell
thereon, scoring the stone deeply; and lo! his own hand ended with
that blow what I had begun, marking the cross-beam I had yet to
make, so that the holy sign was complete.

And I saw that in a flash, even as he reeled back from the menhir
and staggered. His foot splashed into the ooze of the bank and went
down; and with that he lost his footing altogether and fell
headlong into the pool, swaying as he went, across the front of the
menhir.

Now there was a shout and the sound of hurrying footsteps behind
me, but it was Howel's voice, and I did not turn. I leaned on the
menhir to try to catch the white robes that swirled below me, and
then I felt a heave and quaking in the turf on which I knelt as I
reached over the black water, and Howel cried out and dragged me
back roughly for a long fathom.

The menhir was falling. Slowly at first, and then more swiftly, it
bent forward over the pool, and then it gathered way suddenly, and
with a mighty crash it fell with all its towering height across
it--and across the last flash of the white robes of the man who yet
struggled therein.

For a moment the cross looked skyward, and then the wave swept over
the stone, and it was gone into the unknown depths that maybe held
so many secrets of the strange rites of those who had reared it.
Only where its foot had been planted was a pit to shew that
somewhat had been there, and that was slowly filling with the black
bog which had undermined the stone at last. The old prophecy had
come to pass, and there was indeed an end.

But I saw for a moment into that pit before it was filled, and in
it was laid open as it were a great stone chest, where the base of
the menhir had been to cover it, and in that were skulls and bones
of men, and among them the dull gleam of ancient gold and flint.

The wild tumult of the water died away, and the ripples came, and
then the pool was glassy as before, but there was no sign of
movement in it, and now it was clear no longer. And still Howel and
I stared silently at that place whence the gr