His words brought a smile to her face. Ethne’s beauty was gone when she smiled, for the turned back lips revealed a terrible defect--that her eye-teeth had grown double the length of the others and were sharp and jagged, like the fangs of a wild beast. “Mere words!” she said, with the ugly smile growing stronger. “If you loved me, you would follow my wishes.” “I will follow you to the end of the world,” he said. “Only try me.” At his words the woman turned sharply and looked at him with glittering eyes. “Do you mean this?” “I do.” Her nostrils grew large--her breath came loud and heavy. She raised her clenched hand upward. The boy’s spirit rose. “Would you to battle again?” he asked. “Where--how?” “Where!--how!” she screamed. “Here in Hibernia! Rally the men of Hibernia around you--and take your sword and strike at this Christianity that has cost us our home and country!” She had risen in speaking. Now she sat down again and pressed her lips together; and she placed her hand upon her heart, trying to subdue her passion. She looked at him narrowly, as though half fearing the effect of her words upon him. He trembled from head to foot. “This is madness!” he said, in a low voice. “The madness of despair--and it is harder for you than for us, for you had not Elgiva’s cause at heart.” “Elgiva!” she hissed. “Accursed Saxon name!” Ethne leapt from her seat again; and, with her face and clenched hand thrown to the sky, let fall a hundred curses on her foes. She had found a vent for her smothered wrath, and the boy forgot for the time her former words. The fear and loathing of the Saxon were upon them both. They fell into each other’s arms sobbing and crying out that Rome had done this thing to them. Rome had deserted them in their hour of need. “The Romans taught us to love ease and luxury,” cried the boy, “and to cry out for help when we were hurt! When we had learnt our lesson well, they sailed away and left us. Then that fool Vootigern did his pretty piece of work--he made room in the nest for the cuckoo who has kicked us out of fair Britain.” “There is little left of fair Britain now,” cried Ethne. “They have made sword-land of half of it, the other grows smaller every day--this last defeat has cut it in two. Damnonia and Cornwall, with the precious fortress, Tintagil, is severed from the rest. Men say, too, towards Caledonia there is a weak spot, where the Angles of the North are pressing closer to the sea.”