Camlan and The Shadow of the Sword

"Rohan, Rohan! Can you not hear me call? It is time to go. Come, come!
It frightens me to look down at you. Will you not come up now, Rohan?"

The voice that cries is lost in the ocean-sound that fills the blue
void beneath; it fades away far under, amid a confused murmur of
wings, a busy chattering of innumerable little newborn mouths; and
while the speaker, drawing dizzily back, feels the ground rise up
beneath her feet and the cliffs prepare to turn over like a great
wheel, a human cry comes upward, clear yet faint, like a voice from
the sea that washes on the weedy reefs of blood-red granite a thousand
feet below.

The sun is sinking far away across the waters, sinking with a last
golden gleam amid the mysterious Hesperides of the silent air, and his
blinding light comes slant across the glassy calm till it strikes on
the scarred and storm-rent faces of these Breton crags, illuminating
and vivifying every nook and cranny of the cliffs beneath, burning on
the summits and brightening their natural red to the vivid crimson of
dripping blood, changing the coarse grass and yellow starwort into
threads of emerald and glimmering stars, burning in a golden mist
around the yellow flowers of the overhanging broom, and striking with
fiercest ray on one naked rock of solid stone which juts out like a
huge horn over the brink of the abyss, and around which a strong rope
is noosed and firmly knotted.

Close to this horn of rock, in the full glory of the sunset light,
stands a young girl, calling aloud to one who swings unseen below.

The sunlight flashes full into her face and blinds her, while the soft
breath of the sea kisses the lids of her dazzled eyes.

Judged by her sun-tanned skin, she might be the daughter of some gipsy
tribe. But such dark features as hers are common among the Celtic
women of the Breton coast; and her large eyes are not gipsy-black, but
ethereal grey--that mystic colour which can be soft as heaven with joy
and love, but dark as death with jealousy and wrath; and, indeed, to
one who gazes long into such eyes as these, there are revealed strange
depths of passion, and self-control, and pride. The girl is tall and
shapely, somewhat slight of figure, small-handed, small-footed; so
that, were her cheek a little less rosy, her hands a little whiter,
and her step a little less elastic, she might be a lady born.

It is just eighteen years to-day since that red blustering morning
when her father, running into port with the biggest haul of fish on
record that season in the little fishing village, found that the Holy
Virgin, after giving him four strong sons had at last deposited in his
marriage bed a maid-child, long prayed for, come at last; and the
maid's face is still beautiful with the unthinking innocence of
childhood. Mark the pretty, almost petulant mouth, with the delicious
underlip--

"Some bee hath stung it newly!"

Woman she is, yet still a child; and surely the sun, that touches this
moment nearly every maiden cheek in every village for a hundred miles
along this stormy coast, shines upon no sweeter thing.

Like Queen Bertha of old she bears in her hand a distaff, but not even
a queen's dress, however fair, could suit her better than the severe
yet picturesque garb of the Breton peasant girl--the modest white
coif, the blue gown brightly bordered with red, the pretty apron
enwrought with flowers in coloured thread, the neat bodice adorned
with a rosary and medal of Our Lady; and finally, the curious sabots,
or wooden shoes.

"Rohan, Rohan!"

A clear bird-like voice, but it is lost in the murmur of the blue void
below.

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Camlan and The Shadow of the Sword