For a moment the cross looked skyward, and then the wave swept over the stone, and it was gone into the unknown depths that maybe held so many secrets of the strange rites of those who had reared it.  Only where its foot had been planted was a pit to shew that somewhat had been there, and that was slowly filling with the black bog which had undermined the stone at last.  The old prophecy had come to pass, and there was indeed an end.

But I saw for a moment into that pit before it was filled, and in it was laid open as it were a great stone chest, where the base of the menhir had been to cover it, and in that were skulls and bones of men, and among them the dull gleam of ancient gold and flint.

The wild tumult of the water died away, and the ripples came, and then the pool was glassy as before, but there was no sign of movement in it, and now it was clear no longer.  And still Howel and I stared silently at that place whence the great stone had passed like a dream.

“Nona saw it troubled,” Howel said at last.

But I answered what was in my mind, with a sort of despair: 

“He never told me where Owen lies.”

“But I think we have found him, or nearly,” Howel answered.  “Come with me.  This is no place for us to bide in.  Did you hear those voices?”

I had heard the echoes from the rocks after the great crash, and they were strange and wild enough, but I heard nothing more.

“I heard one shout some time since,” I said, rising up from where I still sat as Howel had left me.

“Nay, but the wailing when the stone fell,” he said.  “Wailing from all around.  Wailing as of the lost.  Come hence, Oswald.”

I do not know if the man of the more ancient race heard more than I, mingled with those wild echoes, but I know that Howel the prince feared little.  Now he was afraid, even in the bright sunlight, and owned it.

But the first shock had passed from me, and I looked for our horses.  They had gone.  I think that the fall of the menhir scared them, for they were yet tied where Evan left them, just before that.

“Howel, the horses have broken loose and gone,” I cried.

“Let them be,” he said; “they will but go to the men down the valley, and will be caught there.  Come, we must get hence.”

He fairly dragged me with him towards the glen, and it was not until we were out of the circle of cliffs round the pool and picking our way among the boulders of the water course, that he spoke again.

“That is better,” he said,—­“one can breathe here.  I do not care if I never set eyes on that place again, and indeed I hope we need not.  Now we have to find Owen as quickly as we may.”

“What of the two men?”

“One turned on us, and we slew him perforce.  The other Evan has tied up safely, though it took us all our time to catch him.  I left Evan trying to make him speak.”