and eaten of the feast, the young men sat down in the temple and fell asleep, and never awoke again, but so made an end with life.  In this wise the blessing of Hera came to them; and the men of Argos caused statues to be made of them and set up at Delphi, for a memorial of their piety and its reward.”

Thus quietly the great song ended, and Graul, looking around on his people, saw on their faces a cheerfulness they had not known since the day of the flood.

“Sir,” said he, “yours is the half of my poor kingdom and yours the inheritance, if you will abide with us and sing us more of these songs.”

“For that service,” answered the Stranger, “I am come; but not for the reward.  Give me only a hide of land somewhere upon your cliffs, and there will I build a house and sing to all who have need of me.”

So he did; and the fable goes on to say that never were known in the remnant of Lyonesse such seasons as followed, nor ever will be.  The fish crowded to the nets, the cliffs waved with harvest.  Heavy were the nets to haul and laborious was the reaping, but the people forgot their aches when the hour came to sit at the Stranger’s feet and listen, and drink the wine which he taught them to plant.  For his part he toiled not at all, but descended at daybreak and nightfall to bathe in the sea, and returned with the brine on his curls and his youth renewed upon him.  He never slept; and they, too, felt little need of sleep, but drank and sang the night away, refreshed by the sacred dews, watching for the moon to rise over the rounded cornfields, or for her feet to touch the sea and shed silver about the boats in the offing.  Out yonder Gwennolar sang and took her toll of life as before; but the people heeded less, and soon forgot even when their dearest perished.  Other things than sorrow they began to unlearn.  They had been a shamefaced race; the men shy and the women chaste.  But the Stranger knew nothing of shame; nor was it possible to think harm where he, their leader, so plainly saw none.  Naked he led them from the drinking-bout down the west stairway to the bathing-pool, and naked they plunged in and splashed around him and laughed as the cool shock scattered the night’s languor and the wine-fumes.  What mattered anything?—­what they did, or what they suffered, or what news the home-coming boats might bring?  They were blithe for the moment and lusty for the day’s work, and with night again would come drink and song of the amorous gods; or if by chance the Singer should choose another note and tell of Procris or of Philomela, they could weep softly for others’ woes and, so weeping, quite forget their own.

And the fable goes on to say that for three years by these means the Stranger healed the griefs of the people of Lyonnesse, until one night when they sat around he told them the story of Ion; and if the Stranger were indeed Phoebus Apollo himself, shameless was the telling.  But while they listened, wrapped in the story, a cry broke on the night above the murmur of the beaches—­a voice from the cliff below them, calling “Repent!  Repent!”