Igraine looked over his shoulder, and saw how their flight tended down the flank of a gentle hill into the lap of a fair valley. The grass stretch was broken by great trees--oaks, beeches, and huge, corniced cedars. Down in the green hollow below them a mere shone with the soul of the sky steeped in its quiet waters. It was ringed with trailing willows, and an island held its centre, piled with green shadows and the grey shape of a fair manor. The place looked as peaceful as sleep in the eye of the morning. The woman on the white horse bade one of her men take his bugle-horn and blow a summons thereon to rouse the folk upon the island. Twice the summons sounded down over the water, but there was no answering stir to be marked about the house or garden. The place was smokeless, lifeless, silent. Like many another home, its hearths were cold for fear of the barbarian sword. As they held downhill, Igraine wove the matter through her thought like swift silk through a shuttle. "Should there be no boat," she said, giving voice to her misgivings, "what can you do for us?" "We must swim for it," said Pelleas, keenly. "It is a broad, fair water, and the horse cannot bear us both." "He shall, if needs be." She felt that the brute would, after Pelleas had spoken so. She patted the arched black neck, and smiled at the sky as they came down to the mere's edge at a canter. The water was lapping softly at the sedges amid a blaze of marsh marigolds and purple flags, the surface gleaming like glass in the sun. Half a score water-hens went winging from the reeds, and skimming low and fast towards the island. A heron rose from the shallows, and laboured heavenwards with legs trailing. Riding round the margin, they found to their joy a barge grounded in a little bay, with sweeps ready upon the thwarts, and a horse-board fitted at the prow. A purple cloak hung over one bulwark, trailing in the water; a small crucifix and a few trinkets were scattered on the poop, as though those who had used the ferry last had fled in fear, forgetful of everything save flight. Then came the embarkation. The barge would but hold three horses at one voyage, so Pelleas ordered Igraine and the rest into the boat, and bade the men row over and return. Igraine demurred a moment. "Leave your horse," she said; "they may come before the boat can take you." Pelleas refused her with a smile, running his fingers through the brute's black mane. "I have a truer heart than that," he said. The men launched away, and pulled at the sweeps with a will, Igraine helping, and doing her devoir for the man Pelleas's sake. The barge slid away, with ripples playing from the prow, and a gush of foam leaping from each smile of the blades. It was a hundred yards or more to the island, and the craft was ponderous enough to make the crossing slow.