Gorlois jerked his belt and said nothing. The woman Morgan sat and hugged her knees. She looked out to sea with a frown on her face, and the blue coverlet dragged in tight folds about her waist. The kitten woke up and began to play with Morgan's hair as it trailed down upon the bed. She cuffed the little beast aside, and looked at Gorlois. Her eyes now were steely and clear, and very blue under her white forehead. "Obviously, he has learnt all," she said. Gorlois nodded morosely. "And this matter is to be between you alone?" "I have his word." "And he is a fool for truth." Silence held them both awhile, and Morgan seemed to dally with her thoughts. Her lips worked loosely as though moving with her mind. The kitten clawed its way up the coverlet and rubbed its glossy flank against the woman's arm. "What of an ambush?" she suggested mildly. Gorlois darted a look at her and shook his head. "No; it shall be fair between us." "Honour!"--with a sneer. "I am a soldier." "By the prophet, that is the strange part of it all. You go out to kill a man, and yet trouble about the method." "There honour enters." "You kill him, all the same." Morgan tossed the quilt aside, thrust a pair of glimmering feet out of the bed, and stood at Gorlois's elbow. She took the tablet of wax and held it over a lamp that was burning till the wax softened and suffered the lettering to be effaced. Gorlois's great sword hung from the carved bed-post. Morgan took it and buckled it to the man with her plump, worldly little hands. "Let it not fail," she said. Gorlois kissed her lips. "There will be no King; and the heir--well, you are a great soldier, and men fear your name." She kept him with her awhile and then bade him farewell. The sun was high in the heavens when Gorlois, in glittering harness, rode out alone from Tintagel, and passed away into the wilds. VI There was a preternatural brightness over sea and cliff that day. Headland and height stood limned with a luminous grandeur; the sea was a vast opal; mountainous clouds sailed solemn and stupendous over the world. Towards evening it grew still and sultry, and storms threatened. A vapoury leviathan lowered black out of the east, devouring the blue, with scudding mists spray-like about his belly. The sky changed to a sable cavern. In the west the sun still blazed through mighty crevices, candescent gold; the world seemed a chaos of glory and shadow. Sea-birds came screaming to the cliffs. The walls of Tintagel burnt athwart the west. Presently out of the blue bosom of an unearthly twilight a vague wind rose. Gusts came, clamoured, and died into nothingness. The world seemed to shudder. The dry bracken and grass on the hillsides hissed as the wind came seldom and tumultuous. The roadway smoked. In the valleys the trees moaned, shivered, and stood still.