Uther rose up straightway from before the altar and stood before the square of the casement. The moonlight made a halo of his hair, and lit his face with a whiteness that seemed almost supernatural. Strong as he was, his hands shook like aspen leaves; his lips were parted, and his eyes wide with the shadow of the night. Merlin stood in the dark angle of the room; his voice seemed to come as from a tomb; the single lamp flame shook and quivered in a fickle draught. "Sire, the moon is not yet full." "And Igraine?" "Sire." "Where?" "Suffer me, sire, a moment." "Speak quickly. God knows, I have prayed like a Samson." Merlin cast his mantle from him, and stood out in the moonlight wrapped in the mystic symbolism of his robe. Sapphire and emerald, ruby and sardonyx, flashed with a ghostly gleam in the pale light, and caught the moonbeams in their folds. Merlin's thin hands quivered like a spray of May blossom waving in the night wind, and his eyes were like the eyes of a leopard. "Sire, thou wert Pelleas once." "I should remember it." "Thou art Pelleas again." "Again?" "In thy red harness with thy painted shield, thy black horse; take them all." "The past rushes back like dawn." "Near Caerleon lies a valley." "There are twenty valleys." "Go north, sire, in thought. Pass the Cross on Beacon Hill, hold on for the Abbey of the Blessed Mary, take to the hills, go by a ruined tower, ford Usk, where there is a hermitage. Pass through a waste, cross more hills, go down into a valley that runs north and south." "I follow." "Go alone, sire." "Alone." "The valley is piled steep with forestland. Go down and fear not. In the valley's lap lie meadowlands, a pool, a cottage. In that cottage you shall find a knight; his armour is gilded gold, his horse a grey, his shield shows a cloven heart set amid white lilies. Speak with that knight." "Yet more!" "Speak with that knight, sire." "In peace?" "If you love your soul." "And Igraine--Merlin, what of her?" "That knight shall lead you to her. Sire, I have said." IX It was early and a clear dewy morning when Uther rode down alone from the palace by a narrow track that curled through the shrubberies clothing the palace hill. A generous sky piled its blue dome with mountainous clouds that billowed up above the horizon. The laurels in the shrubbery flickered their leaves like innumerable scales of silver in the sun; amber sun rays slanted through the dense branches of the yews, and flashed on the red harness that burnt down the winding track. The wind sang, the green larches tossed their 'kerchiefs, in the distance the sea glimmered to the white frescoes of the sky.