CHAPTER XIV.
LEADER OF THE KYMRY.
Cormac had never seen Ethne in anguish before; for anguish was the only word to express the condition in which he now beheld her.
Her grief and tears appeared to him so unnatural that for a few seconds he had looked and listened without comprehending the scene before him.
“I have lost her!” Ethne was saying. “I have searched everywhere and I cannot find her. Neither seer nor soothsayer can aid me—I have lost her whom I would not have lost for all the world!”
Her grief was quite unfeigned. Her limbs trembled so much that she could not stand. Her face was white as death.
Cormac’s heart beat fast. The remembrance of his words to Elgiva came back to him.
He saw Ethne wring her hands in despair. She gave one mournful cry, “Elgiva! Elgiva!” and fell fainting into the arms of her women.
Cormac had a strange, choking sensation. The old passionate admiration for Ethne stirred in his heart once more, mixed with a flood of remorse and shame and doubt.
Elgiva had flown from his side. She had torn her way through the crowd. He could see her kneeling beside Ethne, holding her in her arms and calling upon her by name. Ethne had recovered from her momentary faintness, but was still so weak that Elgiva was obliged to support her. The two women laughed and cried together. There was a wild scene between them—Elgiva explaining, Ethne expostulating. Cormac could see that Ethne’s present joy was as unfeigned as her past grief.
The Saxon helped Ethne to her seat, and then knelt at her feet, holding one of the small white hands in a tender grasp. At sight of the two women a murmur of applause came from the people assembled in the hall.
Cormac stole up quietly and stood behind Elgiva, his sparkling eyes fixed on Ethne’s face; her face looked soft and gentle with the traces of grief still upon it. She looked up at him, not surprised at his appearance—having just heard from Elgiva that he had rescued her.
Ethne held out her hand.
“You would not let me go with you,” she said, gently, “but I have followed you.”
He said nothing in reply; but bending down knelt on one knee before her and placed her hand upon his head.
It was the very scene to appeal to the hearts of the people. Cormac was recognised, in spite of his shrouding cloak. Cry after cry to his honour rang through the room. Weapons flashed, and clashed aloft.
“The Black Horse!” they cried, “Cormac of Fail! Cormac and Ethne! Children of Tuathal! Twigs from the tree of Tara! All hail! All hail!”
They were the same battle cries, in the same Hibernian voices, as those which had greeted him when he rode through Ireland with Ethne many months before.
Cormac stood upright and threw aside his cloak. One of Ethne’s slaves drew a scented saffron robe around him, another placed a golden hoop on his head.
The applause grew louder. Trumpets and timpans almost deafened the people. Cormac’s eye flashed, his cheek glowed.
He walked up and down the raised platform; smiling and responding to the people.
“The Black Horse! The Black Horse!” they cried. “The Black Horse against the White!”
Then an old man—so old men had forgotten the year of his birth—rose and asked for a few minutes’ silence, that he might be heard.
“I call on you all to witness this thing,” he piped, “that one has come among us from over the seas mightier than Hengist or Horsa. Here is the Avenger! Here is the Black Horse! And though Britain lies white with the cold ash of the White Horse she shall be blackened, in time, by the scorch of the Black!”
The tumult was so great, after this, that although Cormac was seen to speak, his voice could not be heard.
Again he walked up and down with the easy, spirited motion that reminded Elgiva so irresistibly of the fleet mountain steeds. Often had she seen such springing, quivering movements as she had watched them, eager for the race.
In the confusion of sounds, Cormac’s quick ear detected the first chords of a war-dance struck from the harps around him; and responding to the music, he leapt forward and broke into the first movement of the beloved sword-dance.
A half-halo of light glanced round him as he drew his sword like lightning from its sheath. A band of warriors immediately gathered about him and joined with him in the mazes of the dance.
Elgiva watched him with a beating heart. She realised now the truth of what Ethne had told her—that Cormac drew men around him as a flower gathers bees. Who could resist him, this darling of the people? He had the grace and fire of an untamed animal, as he responded, with voice and limb, to the music. More than mortal he seemed. His feet were winged, surely; they did not hurry, but went on ever, swift and light and even. To watch him—with a battle-song on his lips and sword and feet ever in time to the music—was to see the very personation of youth and fire.
Once, as he passed by her seat, he paused for an instant; then wove one of the figures of the dance around her. The spirit of mischief shone in his eyes. Bending towards her, as though in the measure of the dance, he whispered teasingly:
“Do you remember your words to me at Glendalough? Tell me, Elgiva, are you as ready now as then to wed me?”
The dance carried him away from her before she could reply. She flashed a look at him. A ripple of teasing laughter came to her ears in return.
Again when he passed her—his eyes challenged hers. It was new to her this wild assertive mood of his. She watched him with a vague wonder—this personification of her mother’s race who turned so easily from one note to another in the scale of human passion and played upon its gamut with the ease their fingers played upon the harp.
Who could resist him, she asked herself, this darling of the people?
Ethne watched him, well-pleased; knowing that, to these simple people—children of the soil—a stronger appeal could be made by dance than by speech.
“Ahoi! Ahoi!” came Cormac’s battle cry once more. He tossed his locks from his gleaming forehead; his thin nostril quivered; his sword shimmered constantly in a half-arc of light. Swifter and swifter flew his feet, as sword and shield gleamed in the warrior dance. He chanted as he sang:
“Dance on! dance on: let us dance on! Dance on for aye! Till sword, and foot, and tongue doth yield. The magic sense from rhythm born! Dance on: dance on: let us dance on!”
Warrior after warrior fell out and gave place to others in the charmed circle of the sword-dancers—either too fatigued or too confused and giddy to observe the figures of the dance. But still the light, swaying figure of the young chieftain flew on—till the eyes of the whole assembly filled with wonder at him.
All present were so intent upon him that, for a time, they were unconscious of uproar and confusion outside the hall.
Suddenly every entrance was flooded by a sea of white, agonized faces.
The faces, for the greater part were those of old men and women and children, but amongst them were warriors’, blanched with fear; they looked more ghastly because of the flaring torches they carried. A confused murmur accompanied them—not the voices of men, but rather the passionate sighs of those whom fear had turned to mutes.
The leader of the dance continued though all around the attention was falling from him, and men were gazing upon each other in growing excitement—knowing the tumult must mean battle—but not knowing the quarter from whence it came.
In the moment of suspense Bret and Pict and Scot were stirred to the very depths of the fount from which they drew their war-passion. Hands leapt to knife and pike and Roman blade as, with paling faces, they turned involuntarily towards each other. Shrill voices, at length, broke yelling into the assembly.
“The Heathen—the Saxons—are upon us! They close in upon us from either side!”
The leader of the sword-dance had halted—the flashing marvel of shield and sword and winged feet had stopped, statue-like, for a minute.
And then again he was leader of men—not of revellers.
Suddenly at the head of every warrior, every chief in the hall—as they banded themselves together in passionate devotion to him.
In a moment of time he became chief and leader of all about him. Not, as it were, of his own free will, but of some power that emanated from him—mysterious—intoxicating. All flocked towards him. The popular cries of Cunedda and Kymry were yoked with those of Cormac and The Black Horse. Men’s hearts kindled anew—Bret and Pict and Scot vowed brotherhood for aye! But when they went forth, it was to confront rumour of battle instead of battle itself!
The wild alarm that two bodies of Saxons were closing upon the Fair, had arisen at the news that two bands of men, in the darkness, were approaching on either side. Panic often seized the people, at the least cause, since that fearful day when the Saxons had burst on the southern plain like an angry sea; and, beating around the walls of Sarum, had at length overcome the mighty fortress.
The approaching men proved to be serfs and herdsmen of Celtic race; but they were the bearers of ill tidings.
From two directions came the grave news that the Roman city, Viriconium, had fallen into the hands of the Saxons, under the two dread brothers—Cutha and Ceawlin; that its inhabitants had been put to the sword, and its buildings to the flame.
The awful tidings seemed to inspire Cormac with new hope and courage.
“To the South!” he cried. “To the Saxons!”