The sun did indeed shine out now as some cloud passed, and I saw that its rays came slanting through the gap in the cliffs across the pool, passing the menhir without lighting on it, but falling now on the flat rock that was behind it, though not fully yet.  Half thereof was still in the shadow thrown by the hills.

Morfed glanced at that shadow, and his face changed, for I think that he knew the time for some midday rite which we might not see was near, and at that he seemed to make some resolve.  He did not turn from us, but he lifted his voice in a strange chant, and said somewhat in Welsh that I could not understand, and as they heard it his two followers placed themselves on either side of the flat rock three paces behind him, and stood motionless.  Then Morfed lifted his arm and began to sing softly, swinging the sickle in time to the song, with his eyes on us.

I thought that maybe he would sing to us the end of Owen, as would Thorgils, but the tongue in which the words were spoken was not the Welsh that I knew.  I think now that it was the tongue of the men who reared the menhir, and that which was the mother of the tongue of Howel and Gerent alike.  It was an uncanny song, and I waxed uneasy as it went on, and the flashing sickle waved more quickly before my eyes.

Soon the murmur of the song seemed to get into my brain, as it were, and the sparkle of the gold in the sunlight wove itself into strange circles of light before my eyes, widening and narrowing in mystic curves that dazzled me, until at last I would look no longer, and with an effort I turned my head and glanced at Howel to ask if this foolishness should not be ended.

But he shook his head.

“Let him be,” he said in a whisper.  “It is ill to anger a crazed man.  Surely he will tell what we need soon.”

But beside him Evan seemed to be shrinking as in terror.  I suppose the Briton has old memories of the Druids of past days which yet bid him fear them.

“Hearken to me, and heed them not,” sang Morfed in words that I could understand.  “Hearken, for you have much to learn.”

That was true, and I turned to him.  I supposed that he was in truth about to speak to me as I would, and straightway the look of Morfed was on my face, and the song went back to its old burden, and the flashing sickle held my eyes with its circling, and I knew that if I looked long I also must pass as it were from myself, as had those two, and I wrenched my eyes from him.

Then a movement on the stone caught my gaze, and I saw that the two men yet stood motionless, but across the sunlit patch which had crept nearer the centre where the hollowed bowl was, a great adder, greater than any I had ever seen, thick and spade-headed, had coiled itself in shining folds peaceably and seeming not to heed the men.  Only its head was raised a little, and it swayed as in time to the chant of the priest, while the long forked tongue flickered forth now and then restlessly.