round him, and she drew him close against her side, and at that moment—­O how terrible it was!—­the black cloud and the whole universe was lit up with a sudden flash that seemed to blind and scorch him, and the hill and the world was shaken and seemed to be shattered by an awful thunder crash.  It was more than he could endure:  he ceased to feel or know anything, and was like one dead, and when he came to himself and opened his eyes he was lying in her lap with her face smiling very tenderly, bending over him.

“O, poor little Martin,” she said, “what a poor, weak little boy you are to lose your senses at the lightning and thunder!  I was angry when I saw them coming to the hill, for they are wicked, cruel men, stained with blood, and I made the storm to drive them away.  They are gone, and the storm is over now, and it is late—­come, let us go to our cave;” and she took him up and carried him in her arms.

CHAPTER XVI

THE PEOPLE OF THE MIST

When Martin first came to the hills it was at the end of the long, hot, dry summer of that distant land:  it was autumn now, and the autumn was like a second summer, only not so hot and dry as the first.  But sometimes at this season a wet mist came up from the sea by night and spread over all the country, covering it like a cloud; to a soaring bird looking down from the sky it must have appeared like another sea of a pale or pearly grey colour, with the hills rising like islands from it.  When the sun rose in the morning, if the sky was clear so that it could shine, then the sea-fog would drift and break up and melt away or float up in the form of thin white clouds.  Now, whenever this sea-mist was out over the world the Lady of the Hills, without coming out of her chamber, knew of it, and she would prevent Martin from leaving the bed and going out.  He loved to be out on the hill-side, to watch the sun come up, and she would say to him, “You cannot see the sun because of the mist; and it is cold and wet on the hill; wait until the mist has gone and then you shall go out.”

But now a new idea came into her mind.  She had succeeded in making him happy during the last few days; but she wished to do more—­she wished to make him fear and hate the sea so that he would never grow discontented with his life on the hills nor wish to leave her.  So now, one morning, when the mist was out over the land, she said to Martin when he woke, “Get up and go out on to the hill and see the mist; and when you feel its coldness and taste its salt on your lips, and see how it dims and saddens the earth, you will know better than to wish for that great water it comes from.”