Gwennolar wreathed her white arms around her father and clung to him, while her blown hair streamed like gold over his beard.  And King Graul set his teeth and rode to save the pair whom he knew to be dearest and believed to be best.  But if Niotte weighed like a feather, Gwennolar with her wickedness began to weigh like lead—­and more heavily yet, until the stallion could scarcely heave his strong loins forward, as now the earth grew moist about his hoofs.  For far ahead of the white surge-line the land was melting and losing its features; trickles of water threading the green pastures, channelling the ditches, widening out into pools among the hollows—­traps and pitfalls to be skirted, increasing in number while the sun sank behind and still the great rock of Cara Clowz showed far away above the green forest.

Rubh’s head was leaning and his lungs throbbed against the King’s heels.  Yet he held on.  He had overtaken the wolves; and Graul, thinking no longer of deliverance, watched the pack streaming beside him but always falling back and a little back until even the great gray dam dropped behind.  A minute later a scream rang close to his ear; the stallion leaped as if at a water-brook, and as suddenly sank backward with a dozen wolves on his haunches.

“Father!” shrieked Gwennolar.  “Father!” He felt her arms dragged from around his neck.  With an arm over his wife Niotte he crouched, waiting for the fangs to pierce his neck.  And while he waited, to his amazement the horse staggered up, shook himself, and was off with a bound, fleet as an arrow, fleeter than ever before, yet not fleeter than the pack now running again and fresh beside him.  He looked back.  Gwennolar rose to her knees on the turf where the wolves had pulled her down and left her unhurt; she stretched out both arms to him, and called once.  The sun dipped behind her, and between her and the sun the tide—­a long bright-edged knife—­came sweeping and cut her down.  Then it seemed as if the wolves had relinquished to the waters not their prey only but their own fierce instinct; for the waves paused at the body and played with it, nosing and tumbling it over and over, lifting it curiously, laying it down again on the green knoll, and then withdrawing in a circle while they took heart to rush upon it all together and toss it high, exultant and shouting.  And during that pause the fugitives gained many priceless furlongs.

They reached the skirts of the great forest and dashed into its twilight, crouching low while Rubh tore his way between the gray beech-trunks and leaped the tangles of brier, but startled no life from bough or undergrowth.  Beast and reptile had fled inland; and the birds hung and circled over the tree-tops without thought of roosting.  Graul’s right arm tightened about his wife’s waist, but his left hand did no more than grasp the rein.  He trusted to the stallion, and through twilight and darkness alike Rubh held his course.