It was an uncanny song, and I waxed
uneasy as it went on, and the flashing sickle waved more quickly
before my eyes.
Soon the murmur of the song seemed to get into my brain, as it
were, and the sparkle of the gold in the sunlight wove itself into
strange circles of light before my eyes, widening and narrowing in
mystic curves that dazzled me, until at last I would look no
longer, and with an effort I turned my head and glanced at Howel to
ask if this foolishness should not be ended.
But he shook his head.
"Let him be," he said in a whisper. "It is ill to anger a crazed
man. Surely he will tell what we need soon."
But beside him Evan seemed to be shrinking as in terror. I suppose
the Briton has old memories of the Druids of past days which yet
bid him fear them.
"Hearken to me, and heed them not," sang Morfed in words that I
could understand. "Hearken, for you have much to learn."
That was true, and I turned to him. I supposed that he was in truth
about to speak to me as I would, and straightway the look of Morfed
was on my face, and the song went back to its old burden, and the
flashing sickle held my eyes with its circling, and I knew that if
I looked long I also must pass as it were from myself, as had those
two, and I wrenched my eyes from him.
Then a movement on the stone caught my gaze, and I saw that the two
men yet stood motionless, but across the sunlit patch which had
crept nearer the centre where the hollowed bowl was, a great adder,
greater than any I had ever seen, thick and spade-headed, had
coiled itself in shining folds peaceably and seeming not to heed
the men.
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