So King Graul ruled happily over a happy people until the dark morning when a horseman came galloping to the palace of Maenseyth with a cry that the tide had broken through Crebawethan and was sweeping north and west upon the land, drowning all in its path.  “Hark!” said he, “already you may hear the roar of it by Bryher!”

Yann, the King’s body-servant, ran at once to the stables and brought three horses—­one for Queen Niotte; one for her only child, the Princess Gwennolar; and for King Graul the red stallion, Rubh, swiftest and strongest in the royal stalls, one of the Five Wonders of Lyonnesse.  More than six leagues lay between them and the Wolves’ Cairn, which surely the waters could never cover; and toward it the three rode at a stretch gallop, King Graul only tightening his hand on the bridle as Rubh strained to outpace the others.  As he rode he called warnings to the herdsmen and tinners who already had heard the far roar of waters and were fleeing to the hills.  The cattle raced ahead of him, around him, beside him; he passed troop after troop; and among them, in fellowship, galloped foxes, badgers, hares, rabbits, weasels; even small field-mice were skurrying and entangling themselves in the long grasses, and toppling head over heels in their frenzy to escape.

But before they reached the Wolves’ Cairn the three riders were alone again.  Rubh alone carried his master lightly, and poised his head to sniff the wind.  The other two leaned on their bridles and lagged after him, and even Rubh bore against the left-hand rein until it wearied the King’s wrist.  He wondered at this; but at the base of the cairn he wondered no longer, for the old gray wolf, for whose head Graul had offered a talent of silver, was loping down the hillside in full view, with her long family at her heels.  She passed within a stone’s throw of the King and gave him one quiet, disdainful look out of her green eyes as she headed her pack to the southward.

Then the King understood.  He looked southward and saw the plain full of moving beasts.  He looked northward, and two miles away the rolling downs were not, but in their place a bright line stretched taut as a string, and the string roared as if a great finger were twanging it.

Queen Niotte’s horse had come to a standstill.  Graul lifted and set her before him on Rubh’s crupper, and called to Gwennolar to follow him.  But Gwennolar’s horse, too, was spent, and in a little while he drew rein and lifted her, too, and set her on the stallion’s broad back behind him.  Then forward he spurred again and southward after the wolves—­with a pack fiercer than wolves shouting at Rubh’s heels, nearer and yet nearer.

And Rubh galloped, yet not as before; for this Gwennolar was a witch—­a child of sixteen, golden-tressed, innocent to look upon as a bird of the air.  Her parents found no fault in her, for she was their only one.  None but the Devil, whom she had bound to serve her for a year and a day, knew of her lovers—­the dark young sailors from the ships of Tyre, who came ashore and never sailed again nor were seen—­or beneath what beach their bodies lay in a row.  To-day his date was up, and in this flood he was taking his wages.