dawn climbing red over pinewoods piled on the hills; dawn optimistic yet ominous, harbinger of war and such perils as set the heart leaping and the blood afire; dawn that cried unto the world, "better one burst of heroism and then the grave, than a miserable monotony of nothingness, a domestic surfeiting of the senses with a wife and a fat larder."

out of the east climbed the man on the stolen horse, riding out of the dawn with the lurid phantasms of the night still running riot in his brain. no sleep had smoothed the crumpled page, or touched the memory with unguent to assuage the smart. maledictions, vengeances, prophecies of fire and sword rushed with the red dawn over the hills.

with forty miles behind him, he came on his jaded, sweaty beast towards his own castle of gambrevault, forded his own stream, saw his mills gushing foam, heard the thunder of the weir. how eternally peaceful everything seemed in the dewy amber light of the dawn! away rolled the downs, billows of glorious green, into the west. gambrevault's towers rose against the blue; he saw the camp in the meadows; his own banner blowing to the breeze.

the meadows that morning were quiet as a graveyard, as the lord flavian rode through to the great gate of gambrevault. soldiers idling about, stiffened up, saluted, stared in astonishment at the grim, morose-faced man, who rode by on a foundered horse, looking neither to the right hand nor the left. he cut something of a figure, as though he had been in a tavern brawl, and had spent the night snoring in a cow-house. yet there was an indescribable power and dignity in the tatterdemalion rider for all his tumbled look. the compressed lips, knotted brow, smouldering eyes spoke of phenomenal emotions, phenomenal passions. not a man cheered, and the silence was yet more eloquent than clamour. he rode in by the great gate, and parrying the blank glances and interrogations of his knights, called for two esquires, and withdrew to his own state rooms.

his first trouble was to acknowledge such necessities as hunger and cleanliness. he contrived to compass both at once, eating ravenously even while he was in the bath. his next command was for his harness, and his esquires armed him, agog for news, even waxing inquisitive, to be snubbed for their pains.

"assemble my knights and gentlemen in the great hall," ran his order, and after praying awhile in his own private oratory, he passed down to join the assemblage, solemn and soul-burdened as a young jove.

there is a certain vain satisfaction in being the possessor of some phenomenal piece of news, wherewith to astonish a circle of friends. the dramatic person blurts it out like a stage duke; the real epicure lets it filter through his teeth in fragments, watching with a twinkling satisfaction its effect upon his hearers. the lord flavian's revelations that morning were deliberate and gradual, leisurely in the extreme. many a man waxes flippant or cynical when his feelings are deep and sincere, and he is disinclined to bare his heart to the world. flavian addressed his assembled knights with a certain stinted and pedantic courtliness; when they had warmed to his level, then he could indulge his sympathies to the full. the atmosphere about those who wait to hear our experiences or opinions is often like cold water, somewhat repellent till the first plunge has been tried.

"gentlemen," he said, "i regret to inform you that the abbot porphyry, my uncle, is numbered with the saints."

so much for the first confession; it elicited a sympathetic murmur from those assembled, a very proper and respectable expression of feeling, but nothing passionate.

"i also have to inform you, with much christian resignation, that sir jordan and sir kay, malise, my page, and some twenty men-at-arms are in all human probability dead."

this time some glimmer of light pervaded the hall. there was still mystification, silence, and an exchanging of glances.

"finally, gentlemen, i may confess to you that a great insurrection is afoot in the land; that gilderoy has declared against the king and the nobility; that the scum of a populace has made a great massacre of the magnates; that i, gentlemen, by the grace of god, have escaped to preach to you of these things."

a chorus of grim ejaculations came from the knights and the captains assembled. astonishment, and emotions more durable, showed on every face. flavian gained heat, and let his tongue have liberty; at the end of ten minutes of fervid oratory, the men were as wise as their lord and every wit as vicious. gilderoy had signalised her rising in blood; mob rule had been proclaimed; the peasantry and townsfolk had thrown down the glove to the nobles. these were bleak, plain facts, that touched to the quick the men who stood gathered in the great hall of gambrevault. not a sword was in its scabbard when modred's deep voice gave the cry--

"god and st. philip--for the king."

then like a powder bag flung into a fire came the news of the storming and wrecking of avalon. a single man-at-arms had escaped the slaughter, escaped by crawling down an offal shoot and hiding till the rebels evacuated the place and marched under cover of night for geraint. the man had crept out and fled on foot from the stricken place for gambrevault. it was a tramp of ten leagues, but he had stuck to it through the night like a trojan, and, knowing the road well, had reached gambrevault before the sun was at noon. they brought him before flavian and the rest, fagged to the fifth toe, and hardly able to stand. he told the whole tale, as much as he knew of it, in a blunt yet dazed way. his senses appeared numbed by the deeds that had been done that night.

flavian leant back in his escutcheoned chair, and gnawed at his lip. this last thrust had gone home more keenly than the rest. that castle of lilies, avalon the fair, was but a friend of wood and stone, yet a friend having wondrous hold upon his heart. he had been born there, and under the shadows of its towers his mother had taken her last sacrament. men can love a tree, a cottage, a stream; flavian loved avalon as being the temple of the unutterable memories of the past. desolation and ruin! bertrand, his old master at arms, slain! he sprang up like an achilles with the ghost of patroclus haunting his soul.

"gentlemen, shall these things pass? hear me, god and the world, hear my oath sworn in this my castle of gambrevault. may i never rest till these things are reprieved in blood, till there are too few men to bury the dead. though my walls fall, and my towers totter, though i win ruin and a grave, i swear by the sacrament to do such deeds as shall ring and resound in history."

so they went all of them together, and swore by the body and blood of the lord to take such vengeance as the sword alone can give to the hot passions of mankind.

that noon there was much stir and life in gambrevault. the camp hummed like a wasp's nest when violence threatens; the men were ready to run to arms on the first sounding of the trumpet. armourers and farriers were at work. flavian had sent out two companies of light horse to reconnoitre towards gilderoy and geraint. they had orders not to draw rein till they had sure view of such rebel voices as were on the march; to hang on the horizon; to watch and follow; to send gallopers to gambrevault; on no account to give battle. companies were despatched to drive in the cattle from the hills, and to bring in fodder. the gambrevault mills were emptied of flour, and burnt to the ground, in view of their being of use to the rebels in case of a siege. certain cottages and outhouses under the castle walls were demolished to leave no cover for an attacking force. the cats, tribocs, catapults, and bombards upon the battlements were overhauled, and cleared for a siege.

towards evening, human wreckage began to drift in from the country, bearing lamentable witness to the thoroughness of fulviac's incendiarism. gambrevault might have stood for heaven by the strange scattering of folk who came to seek its sanctuary. fire and sword were abroad with a vengeance; cottars, borderers, and villains had risen in the night; treachery had drawn its poniard; even the hound had snapped at its master's hand.

many pathetic figures passed under the great arch of gambrevault gate that day. first a knight came in on horseback, a baby in his arms, and a woman clinging behind him, sole relics of a home. margaret, the grey-haired countess of st. anne's, was brought in on a litter by a few faithful men-at-arms; her husband and her two sons were dead. young prosper of fountains came in on a pony; the lad wept like a girl when questioned, and told of a mother and a sire butchered, a home sacked and burnt. there were stern faces in gambrevault that day, and looks more eloquent than words. "verily," said flavian to modred the strong, "we shall have need of our swords, and god grant that we use them to good purpose."

so night drew near, and still no riders had come from the companies that had ridden out to reconnoitre towards gilderoy and geraint. flavian had had a hundred duties on his hands: exercising his courtesy to the refugees, condoling, reassuring; inspecting the defences and the siege train; superintending the victualling of the place. he had ordered his troops under arms in the meadows, and had spoken to them of what had passed at gilderoy, and what might be looked for in the future. there seemed no lack of loyalty on their part. flavian had ever been a magnanimous and a generous overlord, glad to be merciful, and no libertine at the expense of his underlings. his feudatories were bound to him by ties more strong than mere legalities. they cheered him loudly enough as he rode along the lines in full armour, with fifty knights following as his guard.

night came. outposts had been pushed forward to the woods, and a strong picket held the ford across the river. on the battlements guards went to and fro, and clarions parcelled out the night, and rang the changes. in the east there was a faint yellowish light in the sky, a distant glare as of a fire many miles away. in the camp men were ready to fly to arms at the first thunder of war over the hills.

flavian held a council in the great hall, a council attended by all his knights and captains. they had a great map spread upon the table, a chart of the demesnes of gambrevault and avalon, and the surrounding country. their conjectures turned on the possible intentions of the rebels, whether they would venture on a campaign in the open, or lie snug within walls and indulge in raids and forays. and then--as to the loyalty of their own troops? on this point flavian was dogmatic, having a generous and over-boyish heart, not quick to credit others with treachery.

"i would take oath for my own men," he said; "their fathers have served my fathers; i have never played the tyrant; there is every reason to trust their loyalty."

an old knight, sir tristram, had taken a goodly share in the debate, a veteran from the barons' wars, and a man of honest experience, no mere pantaloon. his grey beard swept down upon his cuirass; his deep-set eyes were full of intelligence under his bushy brows; the hands that were laid upon the table were clawed and deformed by gout.

"gentlemen," he said, "i have not the fitness and youth of many of you, but i can lay claim to some wisdom in war. to my liege lord, whom, sirs, i honour as a man of soul, i would address two proverbs. first, despise not, sire, your enemies."

modred laughed in his black beard.

"reverence the scum of gilderoy?"

"ha, man, if we are well advised, these folk have been breathed upon by fanaticism. i tell you, i have seen a meanly-born crowd make a very stubborn day of it with some of the best troops that ever saw service. secondly, sire, i would say to you, turn off your mercenaries if the sky looks black; never trust your neck to paid men when any great peril threatens."

flavian, out of his good sense, agreed with tristram.

"your words are weighty," he said. "so long as we are campaigning, i will pay them well and keep them. if it comes to a siege, i will have no hired bravos in gambrevault. and now, gentlemen, it is late; get what sleep you may, for who knows what may come with the morrow. modred and geoffrey, i leave to you the visiting of the outposts to-night. order up my lutists and flute-players; i shall not sleep without a song."

he passed alone to the outer battlements, and let the night expand about his soul, the stars touch his meditations. from the minstrels' gallery in the hall came the wail of viols, the voices of flute, dulcimer and bassoon keeping a mellow under-chant. he heard the sea upon the rocks, saw it glimmering dimly to end in a fringe of foam.

so his thoughts soared to the face of one woman in the world, the golden eve peering out of paradise, whose soul seemed to ebb and flow like the moan of the distant music. he fell into deep forecastings of the future. he remembered her words to him, her mysterious warnings, her inexplicable inconsistencies, her appeal to war. gilderoy had taught him much, and some measure of truth shone like a dawn spear in the east. a gulf of war and vengeance stretched from his feet. yet he let his soul circle like a golden moth about the woman's beauty, while the wail of the viols stole out upon his ears.