“I had thought that this menhir had fallen when this came to pass.  But maybe the old prophecy meant that not until it fell we must cease our rites.  But that was not how we read the words of old time.  If we read them wrong, what else have we mistaken?”

“Morfed,” I broke in on his musings, “end this idle talk, and tell me of Owen.  Then I will go hence and leave you to work what you will here.  I had no wish to disturb your rites, whatsoever they were.  If aught has happened amiss, it was your own fault, not mine.  Your own deed brought me here.”

But he paid not the least heed to me, and yet I thought that he tried to put me off, as it were, by seeming wrapt in thoughts.

“Surely it should have fallen on this day that sees the end, even as runs the ancient prophecy—­’When the pool shall whelm the stone, Druid rite and chant are done.’  But it has not fallen, and the end is not yet.  But what shall amend this fault?”

I had listened for some sound from Howel and Evan, but since the footsteps passed up the glen I had heard none until this moment.  Then came one cry from far upward, and silence thereafter.  Morfed heard it and looked up, setting at the same time his hand on the edge of the altar stone.

The golden sickle flashed as he did so, and at that, swift as the flash itself, the adder stiffened its coils, and its head flew back, baring the long fangs, and twice it struck the hand deeply.

“I am answered,” Morfed said quietly.  “My life shall amend.”

But he never moved his hand, and the adder swiftly slid from off the stone and sought some hiding place in the loose rocks at the cliff foot, and the priest watched it go, motionless.

“Look you, Saxon,” he said, lifting his eyes to me; “now I must die, and with me ends the line of the Druids of this land of the olden faith.  Yonder in the Cymric land beyond the narrow sea whence Howel came it shall not be lost.  The hills shall keep it, and there the slow mind of the Saxon shall not slay the old powers as you have slain them in me.  Now I know that nought but the power of the cross shall avail on such minds as yours, for the lore of the older days is not for you.  See!  This is an end, and now you in your simpleness shall do one last thing for me.”

I saw that the hand which yet rested on the altar was swelling already, and was waxing fiery red with four black marks where the fangs struck it.  And I had a sort of pity for him, seeing him bear this, which he deemed his punishment, bravely.  Still, he had answered nothing as to where Owen was.

“Morfed,” I said, therefore—­“if it is indeed the last hour for you, make amends for another ill by telling me where Owen is, and I will do what you ask me, if it is what I may do honestly and as a Christian.”

“Grave me a cross on yonder menhir in token that the days of the Druid are numbered,” he said softly, sitting down on the stone with his head bowed, as if in deadly faintness.