Part 5

"Eat, eat!" he shouted. "I never before saw any thing so pale. Be yourself. Isn't your lord lucky, for were I dead who is there in all the world who would mourn for me? Sweet lady, never have I ever seen a lily like you. If there were a bit of color living in your cheeks there is not one among my gentle-women here who would be fit to wear your slippers for gloves. But listen to me and you will share my earldom with me, girl, and we will live like two birds in a nest and I will bring you all sorts of finery from every part of the world to make you happy."

As the earl spoke his two cheeks bulged with the two tremendous morsels of meat which he had tucked into his mouth.

Enid was more alarmed than ever.

"How can I be happy over anything," replied she, "until my lord is well again?"

The earl laughed, then plucked her up out of the corner, carried her over to the table, thrust a dish of food before her and held a horn of wine to her lips.

"By all heaven," cried Enid, "I will not drink until my lord gets up and drinks and eats with me. And if he will not rise again I will not drink any wine until I die."

At this the earl turned perfectly red and paced up and down the hall, gnawing first his upper and then his lower lip.

"Girl," shouted he, "why wail over a man who shames your beauty so, by dressing it in that rag? Put off those beggar-woman's weeds and robe yourself in this which my gentle-woman has brought you."

It was a gorgeous, wonderful dress, colored in the tints of a shallow sea with the blue playing into the green, and gemmed with precious stones all down the front of it as thick as dewdrops on the grass. But Enid was harder to move than any cold tyrant on his throne, and said:

"Earl, in this poor gown my dear lord found me first and loved me while I was living with my father; in this poor gown I rode with him to court and was presented to the queen; in this poor gown he bade me ride as we came out on this fatal quest of honor, and in this poor gown I am going to stay until he gets up again, a live, strong man, and tells me to put it away. I have griefs enough, pray be gentle with me, let me be. O God! I beg of your gentleness, since he is as he is, to let me be."

Then the brutal earl strode up and down the hall and cried out:

"It is of no more use to be gentle with you than to be rough. So take my salute," and with that he slapped her lightly on her white cheek.

Enid shrieked. Instantly the fallen Geraint was up on his feet with the sword that had laid beside him in the hollow of the shield, making a single bound for the earl, and with one sweep of it sheared through the swarthy neck. The rolling eyes turned glassy, the russet-bearded head tumbled over the floor like a ball, and all the bandit knights and the gentle-women in the hall flitted, scampering pell-mell away, yelling as if they had seen a ghoul. Enid and Geraint were left alone.

Now Geraint had come out of his swoon before the earl had returned, and he had lain perfectly silent and immovable because he wished to test Enid and see what she would do when she thought he was sleeping or fainted away, or perhaps dead. So he had listened to all that had taken place and had heard everything that Earl Doorm had said to her and all that Enid had replied, so now he knew that she loved him as ever and that she stood steadfast by him. All his heart filled with pity and remorse that he had brought her away on this hard, hard quest, and had made her suffer so much and had been so rough and cold.

"Enid," said the prince tenderly, very tenderly. "I have used you worse than that big dead brute of a man used you. I have done you more wrong than he. I misunderstood you. Now, now you are three times mine."

Geraint's kindness burst upon Enid so abruptly and was so unforeseen that she could not speak a word only this:

"Fly, Geraint, they will kill you, they will come back. Fly. Your horse is outside, my poor little thing is lost."

"You shall ride behind me, then, Enid."

So they slipped quickly outside, found the stately charger and mounted him, first Geraint, then Enid, climbing up the prince's feet, and throwing her arms about him to hold herself firm as they bounded off.

But as the horse dashed outside of the earl's gateway there before them in the highroad stood a knight of Arthur's court holding his lance as if ready to spring upon Geraint.

"Stranger!" shrieked Enid, thinking of the prince's wound and loss of blood, "do not kill a dead man!"

"The voice of Enid!" cried the stranger knight.

Then Enid saw that he was Edryn, the son of Nudd, and feeling the more terrified as she remembered the jousts, cried out:

"O, cousin, this is the man who spared your life!"

Edryn stepped forward. "My lord Geraint," he said, "I took you for some bandit knight of Doorm's. Do not fear, Enid, that I will attack the prince. I love him. When he overthrew me at the lists he threw me higher. For now I have been made a Knight of the Round Table and am altogether changed. But since I used to know Earl Doorm in the old days when I was lawless and half a bandit myself, I have come as the mouthpiece of our king to tell Doorm to disband all his men and become subject to Arthur, who is now on his way hither."

"Doorm is now before the King of Kings," Geraint replied, "And his men are already scattered," and the prince pointed to groups in the thickets or still running off in their panic. Then back to the people all aghast whom they could see huddling, he related fully to Edryn how he had slain the huge earl in his own hall.

"Come with me to the king," astonished Edryn said.

So they all traveled off to the royal camp where Arthur himself came out to greet them, lifted Enid from her saddle, kissed her and showed her a tent where his own physician came in to attend to Geraint's wound. When that was healed he rode away with them to Caerleon for a visit with Queen Guinevere, who dressed Enid again in magnificent clothes. Then fifty armed knights escorted Enid and the prince as far as the banks of the Severn River, where they crossed over into the land of Devon. And all their people welcomed them back.

Geraint after that never forgot his princedom or the tournament, but was known through all the country round as the cleverest and bravest warrior, while his princess was called Enid the Good.

MERLIN AND VIVIEN.

Vivien was a very clever, wily and wicked woman, who wanted to become a greater magician than even the great Merlin, who was the most famous man of all his times, who understood all the arts, who had built the king's harbors, ships and halls, who was a fine poet and who could read the future in the stars in the skies.

He had once told Vivien of a charm that he could work to make people invisible. Whenever he worked it upon anyone that person would seem to be imprisoned within the four walls of a tower and could not get out. The person would seem dead, lost to every one, and could be seen only by the person who worked the charm. Vivien yearned to know what the charm was, for she wanted to cast its spell on Merlin so that no one would know where he was and she could become a great enchantress in the realm, as she foolishly thought. And she planned very cleverly so as to find out the wise old man's secret.

She wanted him to think that she loved him dearly. At first she played about him with lively, pretty talk, vivid smiles, and he watched and laughed at her as if she were a playful kitten. Then as she saw that he half disdained her she began to put on very grave and serious fits, turned red and pale when he came near her, or sighed or gazed at him, so silently and with such sweet devotion that he half believed that she really loved him truly.

But after a while a great melancholy fell over Merlin, he felt so terribly sad that he passed away out of the kings' court and went down to the beach. There he found a little boat and stepped into it. Vivien had followed him without his knowing it. She sat down in the boat and while he took the sail she seized the helm of the boat. They were driven across the sea with a strong wind and came to the shores of Brittany. Here Merlin got out and Vivien followed him all the way into the wild woods of Broceliande. Every step of the way Merlin was perfectly quiet.

They sat down together, she lay beside him and kissed his feet as if in the deepest reverence and love. A twist of gold was wound round her hair, a priceless robe of satiny samite clung about her beautiful limbs. As she kissed his feet she cried:

"Trample me down, dear feet which I have followed all through the world and I will worship you. Tread me down and I will kiss you for it."

But Merlin still said not a word.

"Merlin do you love me?" at last cried Vivien, with her face sadly appealing to him. And again, "O, Merlin, do you love me?" "Great Master, do you love me?" she cried for the third time.

And then when he was as quiet as ever she writhed up toward him, slid upon his knee, twined her feet about his ankles, curved her arms about his neck and used one of her hands as a white comb to run through his long ashy beard which she drew all across her neck down to her knees.

"See! I'm clothing myself with wisdom," she cried. "I'm a golden summer butterfly that's been caught in a great old tyrant spider's web that's going to eat me up in this big wild wood without a word to me."

"What do you mean, Vivien, with these pretty tricks of yours?" cried Merlin at last. "What do you want me to give you?"

"What!" said Vivien, smiling saucily, "have you found your tongue at last? Now yesterday you didn't open your lips once except to drink. And then I, with my own lady hands, made a pretty cup and offered you your water kneeling before you and you drank it, but gave me not a word of thanks. And when we stopped at the other spring when you lay with your feet all golden with blossoms from the meadows we passed through you know that I bathed your feet before I bathed my own. But yet no thanks from you. And all through this wild wood, all through this morning when I fondled you, still not a word of thanks."

Then Merlin locked her hand in his and said, "Vivien, have you never seen a wave as it was coming up the beach ready to break? Well, I've been seeing a wave that was ready to break on me. It seemed to me that some dark, tremendous wave was going to come and sweep me away from my hold on the world, away from my fame and my usefulness and my great name. That's why I came away from Arthur's court to make me forget it and feel better. And when I saw you coming after me it seemed to me that you were that wave that was going to roll all over me. But pardon me, now, child, your pretty ways have brightened everything again, and now tell me what you would like to have from me. For I owe you something three times over, once for neglecting you, twice for the thanks for your goodness to me, and lastly for those dainty gambols of yours. So tell me now, what will you have?"

Vivien smiled mournfully as she answered:

"I've always been afraid that you were not really mine, that you didn't love me truly, that you didn't quite trust me, and now you yourself have owned it. Don't you see, dear love, how this strange mood of yours must make me feel it more than ever? must make me yearn still more to prove that you are mine, must make me wish still more to know that great charm of waving hands and woven footsteps that you told me about, just as a proof that you trust me? If you told that to me I should know that you are mine, and I should have the great proof of your love, because I think that however wise you may be you do not know me yet."

"I never was less wise, you inquisitive Vivien," said Merlin, "than when I told you about that charm. Why won't you ask me for another boon?"

Then Vivien, as if she were the tenderest hearted little maid that ever lived, burst into tears and said:

"No, master, don't be angry at your little girl. Caress me, let me feel myself forgiven, for I have not the heart to ask for another boon. I don't suppose that you know the old rhyme, 'Trust not at all or all in all?'"

Then Merlin looked at her and half believed what she said. Her voice was so tender, her face was so fair, her eyes were so sweetly gleaming behind her tears.

He locked her hand in his again and said, "If you should know this charm you might sometimes in a wild moment of anger or a mood of overstrained affection when you wanted me all to yourself or when you were jealous in a sudden fit, you might work it on me."

"Good!" cried Vivien, as if she were angry, "I am not trusted. Well, hide it away, hide it, and I shall find it out, and when I've found it beware, look out for Vivien! When you use me so it's a wonder that I can love you at all, and as for jealousy, it seems to me this wonderful charm was invented just to make me jealous. I suppose you have a lot of pretty girls whom you have caged here and there all over the world with it."

Then the great master laughed merrily.

"Long, long years ago," he said, "there lived a King in the farthest East of the East. A tawny pirate who had plundered twenty islands or more anchored his boat in the King's port, and in the boat was a woman. For, as he had passed one of the islands the pirates had seen two cities full of men in boats fighting for a woman on the sea; he had pushed up his black boat in among the rest, lightly scattered every one of them and brought her off with half his people killed with arrows. She was a maiden so smooth, so white, so wonderful that a light seemed to come from her as she walked. When the pirate came upon the shore of the Eastern King's island the King asked him for the woman, but he would not give her up. So the King imprisoned the pirate and made the woman his queen.

"All the people adored her, the King's councilmen and all his soldiers, the beasts themselves. The camels knelt down before her unbidden, and the black slaves of the mountains rang her golden ankle bells just to see her smile. So little wonder that the King grew very jealous. He had his horns blown through all the hundred under-kingdoms which he ruled, telling the people that he wanted a wizard who would teach him some charm to work upon the queen and make her all his own. To the wizard who could do this he promised a league of mountain land full of golden mines, a province with a hundred miles of coast, a palace and a princess. But all the wizards who failed should be killed and their heads would be hung on the city gates until they mouldered away.

"So there were many, many wizards all through the hundred kingdoms who tried to work the charm, but failed; many wizard heads bleached on the walls, and for weeks a troupe of carrion crows hung like a cloud above the towers of the city gateways. But at last the king's men found a little glassy headed, hairless man who lived alone in a great wilderness and ate nothing but grass. He read only one book, and by always reading had got grated down, filed away and lean, with monstrous eyes and his skin clinging to his bones. But since he never tasted wine or flesh--the wall that separates people from spirits became crystal to him. He could see through it, perceive the spirits as they walked and hear them talking; so he learned their secrets. Often he drew a cloud of rain across a sunny sky, or when there was a wild storm and the pine woods roared he made everything calm again.

"He was the man that was wanted. They dragged him to the king's court by force, he didn't want to go. There he taught the king how to charm the queen so that no one could see her again, and she could see no one except the king as he passed about the palace. She lay as if quite dead and lost to life. But when the king offered the magician his league of golden mines, the province with a hundred miles of sea coast, the palace and the princess, the old man turned away, went back to his wilderness and lived on grass and vanished away. But his book came down to me."

"You have the book!" cried Vivian smiling saucily. "The charm is written in it. Good, take my advice and let me know the secret at once, for if you should hide it away like a puzzle in a chest, if you should put chest upon chest, and lock and padlock each chest thirty times and bury them all away under some vast mound like the heaps of soldiers on the battle-field, still I should hit upon some way of digging it out, of picking it, of opening it and reading the charm. And _then_ if I tried it on you who would blame me?"

"You read the book, my pretty Vivien?" cried Merlin. "Well, it's only twenty pages long, but such pages! Every page has a square of text that looks like a blot, the letters no longer than fleas' legs written in a language that has long gone by, and all the borders and margins scribbled, crossed and crammed with notes. You read that book! No one, not even I can read the text, and no one besides me can make out the notes on the margins. I found the charm in the margin. Oh, it is simple enough. Any child might work it and then not be able to undo it. Don't ask me again for it, because even although you would love me too much to try it on me, still you might try it on some of the knights of the Round Table."

"O, you are crueller than any man ever told of in a story, or sung about in song!" cried Vivien. She clapped her hands together and wailed out a shriek. "I'm stabbed to the heart! I only wished that prove to you that were wholly mine, that you loved me and now I'm killed with a word. There's nothing left for me to do except crawl into some hole or cave, and if the wolves won't tear me to pieces, just to weep my life away, killed with unutterable unkindness!"

She paused, turned away, hung her head while the hair uncoiled itself. Then she wept afresh.

The dark wood grew darker with a storm coming over the sky.

Merlin sat thinking quietly and half believed that she was true.

"Come out of the storm," he called over to her, "come here into the hollow old oak tree."

Then since she didn't answer, he tried three times to calm her but quite in vain. At last, however, she let herself be conquered, came back to her old perch, and nestled there, half falling from his knees. Gentle Merlin saw the slow tears still standing in her eyes and threw his arms kindly about her. But Vivien unlinked herself at once, rose with her arms crossed upon her bosom and fled away.

"No more love between us two," she cried, "for you do not trust me. Oh, it would have been better if I had died three times over than to have asked you once! Farewell, think gently of me and I will go. But before I leave you let me swear once more that if I've been planning against you in all this, may the dark heavens send one great flash from out the sky to burn me to a cinder!"

Just as she ended a bolt of lightning darted across the sky, and sliced the giant oak tree into a thousand splinters and spikes.

"Oh, Merlin, save me! save me!" cried Vivien, terrified lest the heavens had heard her oath and were going to kill her. And she flew back to his arms. She called him her dear protector, her lord and liege, her seer, her bard, her silver star of evening, her God, her Merlin, the one passionate love of her life, and hugged him close.

All the time overhead the tempest bellowed, the branches snapped above them in the rushing rain. Her glittering eyes and neck seemed to come and go before Merlin's eyes with the lightning. At last the storm had spent its passion, the woodland was all in peace again, and Merlin, overtalked and overworn had told all of the charm and had fallen asleep.

Then in a moment Vivien worked the charm with woven footsteps and waving arms, and in the hollow of the old oak tree left him lying dead to all life, use and fame and name.

"I have made his glory mine! O fool!" she shrieked, and she sprang down through the great forest, the thicket closed about her behind her and all the woods echoed, "Fool!"

BALIN AND BALAN.

King Pellam owed Arthur some tribute money so Arthur told three of his knights to go see about it and collect it for him.

"Very well," said one of the knights, "but listen, on the way to King Pellam's country, near Camelot, there are two strange knights sitting beside a fountain. They challenge and overthrow every knight that passes. Shall I stop to fight them as we go by and send them back to you?"

Arthur laughed, "No, don't stop for anything; let them wait until they can find some one stronger themselves."

With that the three men left. But after they had gone Arthur, who loved a good fight himself, started away early one morning for the fountain side of Camelot. On its right hand he saw the knight Balin sitting under an alder tree, with his horse beside him, and on the left hand under a poplar tree with his horse at his side sat the knight Balan.

"Fair sirs," cried Arthur, "why are you sitting here?"

"For the sake of glory," they answered. "We're stronger than all Arthur's court. We've proved that because we easily overthrow every knight that comes by here."

"Well, I'm of Arthur's court, too," replied the king, "although I've never done so much in jousts as in real wars. But see whether you can overthrow me so easily too."

So the two brothers came out boldly and fought with Arthur, but he struck them both lightly down, then softly came away and nobody knew anything about it.

But that evening while Balin and Balan sat very meekly by the bubbling water a spangled messenger came riding by and cried out to them: "Sirs, you are sent for by the King."

So they followed the man back to the court. "Tell me your names," demanded Arthur, "and why do you sit there by the fountain?"

"My name is Balin," answered one of the men, "and my brother's name is Balan. Three years ago I struck down one of your slaves whom I heard had spoken ill of me, and you sent me away for a three years' exile. Then I thought that if we would sit by the well and would overcome every knight who passed by you would be a more willing to take me back. But today some man of yours came along and conquered us both. What do you wish with me?"

"Be wiser for falling," Arthur said. "Your chair is in the hall vacant. Take it again and be my knight once more."

So Balin went back into the old hall of the Knights of the Round Table, and they all clashed their cups together drinking his welcome, and sang until all of Arthur's banners of war hanging overhead began to stir as they always did on the battlefield.

Meanwhile the men who had gone to collect the taxes from King Pellam returned.