Yet it was soon evidenced that his faculties were keenly alive to all that passed about him by a marvellous perception of sound, a perception that made itself plain before the sun had drifted much further down the west. The old man had heard something that had not stirred the fallow deer browsing in the glade. A thin metallic sound shimmered on the air, the clattering cadence of hoofs far away upon the high-road. The beggar by the pool had lifted his head, and was listening with his hooded face turned towards the west, his thin fingers picking unconsciously at his beard. Presently the deer browsing in the glade reared up their heads to listen, snuffed the air, and swept back at a trot into the forest. Jays chattered away over the trees; rabbits stopped feeding and sat up with their long ears red in the sunlight. The indifferent suggestion of a sound had grown into a ringing tramp that came through the trees like a blunt challenge to the solitary spirit of the place. Through the indefinite and mazy screens of green a glitter of harness and a streaking of colour glimmered from the wizard amber glow of the west. Three horsemen were coming under the trees,--one in lurid arms before, and two abreast behind in black. The beggar by the pool pulled his cowl down over his face, and stood by the roadside with his bronze pannikin held in a shaky right hand to pray for alms. The knights drew rein by the pool, and he in the red harness flung down money from his belt, and required tidings in return: "The Lord Jesus have mercy on your soul in death," came the whine of gratitude; "what would your lordship learn from an old man?" Uther considered him from the shadow of his casque. He had his suspicions, and was half wise in his conjectures. He could see nothing of the old man's face, and so elected to be innocent for the moment. "Grandfather, have you heard in your days of Merlin the prophet?" "Have I heard of the devil, lording!" "Were he to ride here, should you know his face?" "Sir, I have seen no man these three hours. Yet, in truth, I did but now smell a savour as of hell; and there was a raven here, a black villain of a bird that croaked 'Abracadabra to the letter.'" Uther smiled. "Are you from Caerleon?" he said. "No, sire, it is Uther the King who comes from the City of Legions." "Uther, say you? Put back that hood." "My lord, lo! I bow myself; I have kept the tryst."