“Why look ye, good Roger, canst go where thou wilt, but, as for me, I ride for the White Morte-stone.”

“Nay then, an thou’rt blasted this night, master, needs must I be blasted with thee—­yonder lieth the Morte-stone, across the waste.  And now, may Saint Cuthbert and Saint Bede have us in their blessed care, Amen!”

So they began to cross the rolling desolation of the heath and presently espied a great boulder, huge and solitary, gleaming white and ghostly ’neath the moon.

Being come very nigh, Beltane checked his horse and was about to dismount, when Roger, uttering a sudden gasping cry, cowered to his knees, for in the air about them was a sound very sweet to hear—­the whisper of lute-strings softly plucked by skilled and cunning fingers, and thereafter a man’s voice, rich and melodious, brake forth into tender singing:  and the words were these:—­

  “O moon!  O gentle moon, to-night
   Unveil thy softest, tend’rest light
   Where feet I love, so small and white,
      Do bear my love to me!”

“Stand up, Roger, here is nought to harm us, methinks,” quoth Beltane softly, “stand up, and hold my bridle.”

“But see now, master, there be devil-goblins a many that do pipe like very angels.”

“Nathless here’s one that I must speak with,” said Beltane, slipping to earth and looking about him with wondering eyes, for the voice had seemed to come from the grass at his feet.  And while he yet sought to and fro in frowning perplexity the melodious voice brake forth anew: 

  “O little feet, more white than snow,
   If through the thorny brake ye go,
   My loving heart I’ll set below
      To take the hurt for thee.”

Now as the voice sank and the lute-strings quivered to silence, Beltane, coming behind the great rock, beheld a glow, very faint and feeble, that shone through thick-clustering leaves; and, putting aside a whin-bush that grew against the rock, perceived a low and narrow alley or passage-way leading downwards into the earth, lighted by a soft, mellow beam that brightened as he advanced and presently showed him a fair-sized chamber cunningly hollowed within the rock and adorned with rich furs and skins.  And behold one who reclined upon a couch of skins, a slender, youthful figure with one foot wondrously be-wrapped and swathed, who, beholding Beltane’s gleaming mail, sprang up very nimbly and fronted him with naked sword advanced.

“Nay, hast forgot thy friend, Sir Jocelyn?”

Incontinent the sword was tossed aside, and with a joyous cry Sir Jocelyn sprang and caught him in close embrace.

“Now by sweet Venus her downy dove—­’tis Beltane!” he cried.  “Now welcome and thrice welcome, my lordly smith, thou mighty son of noble father.  Ah, lord Duke, I loved thee that day thou didst outmatch Gefroi the wrestler in the green.  Since then much have I learned of thee and thy valiant doings, more especially of Barham Broom—­how thou didst slay the vile Sir Gilles ’neath the eyes of Ivo and all his powers and thereby didst snatch from shame and cruel death one that is become the very heart of me, so needs must I love and honour and cherish thee so long as I be Jocelyn and thou thy noble self.  Come, sit ye—­sit ye here, for fain am I to question thee—­”