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forbidden to come to see us and to play with me. That has spoilt many pleasant hours for me, too. It
was nice when we used to dress up in my father’s theatrical finery and cloaks, and when you made
us dolls out of clay, or when we performed the Olympian games. I was always the teacher when we
played at school with our little brothers and sisters. Ariane gave you most trouble. Oh, and what fun
when we went fishing and when we brought home the fishes and mother gave us meal and raisins
to cook them.
Do you remember the festival of Adonis, and how it stopped the runaway horse of that musician’s
officer — the horse had knocked over Ariane, and when we got home mother gave you an almond
cake, and you ungrateful sister bit a great piece out of it, and left me only a tiny morsel. Was not
Ariane as pretty as she promised to become? It was years since I last saw her at our old place near
the theatre.
How quickly time flies! A dark fog of eight months we had to live for the masters at Ptolemais, and
often we old folks; but once in the month we see very little too, and we are not allowed to go into
your parents’ house. Little one, the pretty lips, the sweet brown eyes, the pale face, the black hair.
See, there are no plaits in it. Ariane, and when the men in the street turn round to look at her. She is
sixteen now. Ariane—what, little Ariane, why, how long then is it since your mother died? Four
years and eight months. You remember the date very exactly, such a mother is not easily forgotten;
indeed she was a good woman and a kinder I never met. I know, too, that she tried to mollify your
father’s feeling, but she could not succeed, and then the need must die, yes, said Selene gloomily.
How could the gods decree it? They are often more cruel than the hardest hearted man. Your poor
little brothers and sisters!
The girl bowed her head. Charles Angell dashed forward in a frantic manner. He had flung his gun
from him; his eyeballs were fixed and staring; there was foam upon his lips; his hair was streaming
in the wind; he bore an aspect so strange and fearful that the French uttered yells of horror, and fled
before soldiers from the onslaught. But if any had fled up to the ice, there was one Frenchman
whose face became ashy white under the rolling surge of those terrible, bloodshot eyes. He too
flung away his gun, and uttered a frantic yell of terror, plunging headlong into the wood without a
thought save flight.
It is he! it is he! it is he! It was the shout which rang from the lips of Charles as he dashed after the
retreating figure. All was confusion now amid French and Allies alike, there was something in the
appearance of Charles had startled friend and foe alike. There were several of the French soldiers
left dead in the snow and one was captured and made prisoner, but the rest had fled like men
demented, and the rangers could not come up with them, as for Charles in his vagaries they had
disappeared, and one or two men went away, but not far.
At last they came upon the prostrate form of Charles. His face downwards on the frozen ground,
which was deeply stained with blood. His sword was fearfully gashed, some knife yet in his fingers.
He lifted his head for one moment, and then the weapon dropped from his grasp, literally torn out of
his fingers, the blood gushed out, and he fell back lifeless, the snow crimsoned with the last gush of
his heart.
From thither where we have been, and you shall know the wherefore. In such sort made they
answer to the folk. These two knights died in this holy life, nor were none other tidings never
brought thence by them. They of that land called them saints. Existitente enadit the story of the
most holy graal, Josephus, by whom it is placed on record, giveth the benison of our Lord to all that
hear and honour it. The Latin from whence this history was drawn into romance was taken in the
isle of Avalon, in a holy house of religion that standeth at the head of the moors adventurous.
There where King Arthur and Queen Guenever lie, according to the witness of the good men
religious that are therein. That noble history thereof, true from the beginning even to the end. After
this same history beginneth the story how Briant of the Isles renounced King Arthur on account of
Lancelot whom he loved not, and how he assured King Claudas that left King Ban of Benwic of his
land. This story telleth how he conquered him and by what means, and how Galahad of the sea
lands came to King Arthur’s court to help Lancelot, for that he was of his lineage. This story is right
long and right adventurous and weighty, but the…
