Walter Besant - Armorel of Lyonesse - A Romance of To-day

She answered like unto the bold Sir Bedivere – who, perhaps, was standing on that occasion not far from this hill-top.

'I saw the moonlight on the rocks, and I heard the beating of the waves.'

Quoth Dick: 'The spook of a king of Lyonesse would be indeed worth coming out to see.'

Armorel led the way to a barrow, the top of which showed signs of the spade.

'See!' she said. 'Here is one that has been opened. It was a long time ago.'

There were the four slabs of stone still in position which formed the sides of the grave, and the slab which had been its cover lying close beside.

Armorel looked into the grave. 'They found,' she whispered, 'the bones of the king lying on the stone. But when someone touched them they turned to dust. There is the dust at your feet in the grave. The wind cannot bear it away. It may blow the sand and earth into it, but the dust remains. The rain can turn it into mud, but it cannot melt it. This is the dust of a king.'

The young men stood beside her silent, awed a little, partly by the serious look in the girl's face, and partly because, though it now lay open to the wind and rain, it was really a grave. One must not laugh beside the grave of a man. The wind lifted Armorel's long locks and blew them off her white forehead: her eyes were sad and even solemn. Even the short-sighted Dick saw that his friend was right: they were soft black eyes, not of the gipsy kind; and he repented him of a hasty inference. To the artist it seemed as if here was a princess of Lyonesse mourning over the grave of her buried king and – what? – father – brother – cousin – lover? Everything, in his imagination, vanished – except that one figure: even her clothes were changed for the raiment – say the court mourning – of that vanished realm. And also, like Sir Bedivere, he heard nothing but the wild water lapping on the crag.

And here followed a thing so strange that the historian hesitates about putting it down.

Let us remember that it is thirty years, or thereabouts, since this barrow was laid open; that we may suppose those who opened it to have had eyes in their heads; that it has been lying open ever since; and that every visitor – to be sure there are not many – who lands on Samson is bound to climb this hill and visit this open barrow with its perfect kistvaen. These things borne in mind, it will seem indeed wonderful that anything in the grave should have escaped discovery.

Roland Lee, leaning over, began idly to poke about the mould and dust of the grave with his stick. He was thinking of the girl and of the romance with which his imagination had already clothed this lonely spot; he was also thinking of a picture which might be made of her; he was wondering what excuse he could make for staying another week at Tregarthen's – when he was startled by striking his stick against metal. He knelt down and felt about with his hands. Then he found something and drew it out, and arose with the triumph that belongs to an archæologist who picks up an ancient thing – say, a rose noble in a newly ploughed field. The thing which he found was a hoop or ring. It was covered and encrusted with mould; he rubbed this off with his fingers. Lo! it was of gold: a hoop of gold as thick as a lady's little finger, twisted spirally, bent into the form of a circle, the two ends not joined, but turned back. Pure gold: yellow, soft gold.

'I believe,' he said, gasping, 'that this must be – it is – a torque. I think I have seen something like it in museums. And I've read of them. It was your king's necklace: it was buried with him: it lay around the skeleton neck all these thousand years. Take it, Miss Armorel. It is yours.'

'No! no! Let me look at it. Let me have it in my hands. It is yours' – in ignorance of ancient law and the rights of the lord proprietor – 'it is yours because you found it.'

'Then I will give it to you, because you are the Princess of the Island.'

She took it with a blush and placed it round her own neck, bending open the ends and closing them again. It lay there – the red, red gold – as if it belonged to her and had been made for her.

'The buried king is your ancestor,' said Roland. 'It is his legacy to his descendant. Wear the king's necklace.'

'My luck, as usual,' grumbled Dick, aside. 'Why couldn't I find a torque and say pretty things?'

'Come,' said Armorel, 'we have seen the barrows. There are others scattered about – but this is the best place for them. Now I will show you the island.'

The hill slopes gently northward till it reaches a headland or carn of granite boldly projecting. Here it breaks away sharply to the sea. Armorel climbed lightly up the carn and stood upon the highest boulder, a pretty figure against the sky. The young men followed and stood below her.

At their feet the waves broke in white foam (in the calmest weather the Atlantic surge rolling over the rocks is broken into foam), a broad sound or channel lay between Samson and the adjacent island: in the channel half a dozen rocks and islets showed black and threatening.

'The island across the channel,' said Armorel, 'is Bryher. This is Bryher Hill, because it faces Bryher Island. Yonder, on Bryher is Samson Hill, because it faces Samson Island. Bryher is a large place. There are houses and farms on Bryher, and a church where they have service every Sunday afternoon. If you were here on Sunday, you could go in our boat with Peter, Chessun, and me. Justinian and Dorcas mostly stay at home now, because they are old.'

'Can anybody stay on the island, then?' asked Roland, quickly.

'Once the doctor came for Justinian's rheumatism, and bad weather began and he had to stay a week.'

'His other patients meanly took advantage and got well, I suppose,' said Dick.

'I hope so,' Armorel replied simply.

She turned and looked to the north-east, where lie the eastern islands, the group between St. Martin's and St. Mary's, a miniature in little of the greater group. From this point they looked to the eye of ignorance like one island. Armorel distinguished them. There were Great and Little Arthur; Ganilly, with his two hills, like Samson; the Ganninicks and Meneweather, Ragged Island, and Inisvouls.

'They are not inhabited,' said the girl, pointing to them one by one; 'but it is pleasant to row about among them in fine weather. In the old time, when they made kelp, people would go and live there for weeks together. But they are not cultivated.'

Then she turned northwards, and showed them the long island of St. Martin's, with its white houses, its church, its gentle hills, and its white and red daymark on the highest point. Half of St. Martin's was hidden by Tresco, and more than half of Tresco by Bryher. Over the downs of Tresco rose the dome of Round Island, crowned with its white lighthouse. And over Bryher, out at sea, showed the rent and jagged crest of the great rock Menovawr.

'You should land on Tresco,' said Armorel. 'There is the church to see. Oh! it is a most beautiful church. They say that in Cornwall itself there is hardly any church so fine as Tresco Church. And then there are the gardens and the lake. Everybody goes to see the gardens, but they do not walk over the down to Cromwell's Castle. Yet there is nothing in the islands like Cromwell's Castle, standing on the Sound, with Shipman's Head beyond. And you must go out beyond Tresco, to the islands which we cannot see here – Tean and St. Helen's, and the rest.'

Then she turned westward. Lying scattered among the bright waters, whitened by the breeze, there lay before their eyes – dots and specks upon the biggest maps, but here great massive rocks and rugged islets piled with granite, surrounded by ledges and reefs, cut and carved by winds and flying foam into ragged edges, bold peaks, and defiant cliffs – places where all the year round the seals play and the sea-gulls scream, and, in spring, the puffins lay their eggs, with the oyster-catchers and the sherewaters, the shags and the hern. Over all shone the golden sun of September, and round them all the water leaped and sparkled in the light.