To Win the Love He Sought Part 43

"No, I have never heard that," he said. "It is very beautiful. I have never heard the music, and I do not know what language it is."

She smiled.

"It is the song of Ulric, the Dane," she told him. "Many a time he has sung it to me as we stood on the prow of his ship, and the spray broke over our heads and leaped high into the sunshine. He sang it to me when the cold sleet stung our cheeks, and the wind came rushing about us, and we heard no longer the swirl of the oars. He sang it to me in the darkness, while we stole into the harbor, and below his men sharpened their swords and fitted their spear-heads."

"Who was Ulric?" he asked tentatively.

"Ulric was my lover," she answered. "Every night, when the tide comes in, he calls to me, but I do not know where he is. I do not think that I shall ever see him any more."

"Tell me about him," he begged.

Her eyes shone.

"He was tall and strong like a G.o.d," she answered, "with yellow hair and beard, and wonderful blue eyes. No man save he could wield his sword, and in battle men gave way before him as the corn falls before the scythe. And because he loved me he brought me here with him from over the seas. I sat in the ship, while he and his men fought on the land.

And at night, when the villages were burning, back came my lover with skins and ornaments, corn and wine, and we were all happy together."

He watched her still with fascinated eyes.

"Do you mean that you remember these things?" he asked. "You have read about them in a book."

"A book!" she exclaimed scornfully. "What need have I of books to tell me of these things?--I, to whom their happening was but as yesterday.

Only then my name was Hildegarde, and now they call me Eleanor."

"But this all happened very long ago," he protested. "You are only twenty-five, you know. It isn't possible for you to remember."

She eyed him with tolerant scorn.

"You foolish man!" she exclaimed. "You do not understand. The days when I was Hildegarde, and Ulric was my lover, are as clear to me as moonlight. I could tell you many things of those days if you cared to listen--how Ulric slew his brother because he lifted his eyes to me, and how once we were both taken prisoners by the King of East Mercia, and Ulric burst his bonds, the strongest they could forge, and slew the guards one by one.

"It was just such a dawn as this when we came running to the seash.o.r.e, and when we smelled the salt wind how we laughed in one another's faces for the joy of our freedom. Behind the Britons were staggering with fatigue--for Ulric ran like a G.o.d, and when I was weary he caught me up by the waist, and I lay upon his shoulder, and never troubled him. Or I could tell you how he slew his chief captain because one night he whispered in my ear."

He clasped her fingers in his. They were hot and feverish.

"Shall we turn now, dear?" he said. "We have walked far enough in this sun. You shall tell me more of Ulric another day."

They had left the sh.o.r.e, but she turned to the right along a low range of sand-hills.

"Does this lead to any place in particular?" he asked.

"It leads to Rayston Church," she answered. "We are going there."

He looked at her in quick surprise.

"How did you know that?" he asked. "I have heard of a place called Rayston, but there is no church there."

She laughed softly.

"I will show you where it stood, then," she answered. "I will show you, too, what sort of man Ulric was. It was the last of our raids. We had twelve ships, and nearly five hundred men, and everywhere the people fled without fighting, for no one could stand against Ulric and his men.

For once I, too, was allowed to land, for we knew that our coming was unexpected, and there was no fear of defeat. Village by village they plundered, and sacked, and burned. Night by night we made great fires, by which the ships followed us along the coast, and I sang to them till the embers burned low."

She stopped short with a little cry, and pointed inland. To their left was a plowed field, and in the top corner were three gra.s.s and ivy-covered stone walls of immense thickness.

"See," she cried, "there stood Rayston Church! When we came here an old man met us waving a green bough. He told Ulric that all the folk had fled, and that their dwellings might be spared they had collected all their treasures and belongings and stored them in the church. Ulric believed him, and they hastened to the church, all shouting and singing together for joy of such an easy victory. But when they were within a dozen yards of the building there came suddenly upon them from the slit apertures and the tower a cloud of poisoned arrows, and Ulric lost more men in those few minutes than ever in his life before. I was far away behind, but I saw all. I saw Ulric raise his great two-edged sword and cut down to the ground the old man who had led them there. I saw them drag the trunk of a tree to the church door and batter it in, and not one Briton escaped. Ask that old man, Powers, what they have found in the fields here."

Powers called a laborer digging on a potato-patch close at hand.

"What is the name of that ruin?" he asked.

The man surveyed it doubtfully.

"There ain't any one as rightly knows, sir," he admitted. "Our vicar has looked at the walls, and reckoned it must have been a church."

"Have any Danish trophies ever been found about here?"

The old man smiled.

"You see this field, sir?" he answered. "I've heard my grandfather say that when he used to plow that one day it must have been sown with human bones. There's an old horn mug been found here, too, that they say, from the shape of it, must have belonged to some foreigners. It's in the British Museum in London."

Powers threw him a shilling and turned away with Eleanor.

"You have been here before," he said, in a low tone.

"Never since I came with Ulric," she answered dreamily, "and that must have been a very, very long time ago. There were no houses in those days, nor any fields. Yet the land is the same, the land and the sea.

They do not change."

They sat down on a sandy knoll. Powers took her hand in his.

"Dear," he said softly, "it is not well for you to dwell upon these fancies. Try and think instead of the future--our future.

"Fancies," she repeated scornfully. "They are not fancies. They are memories."

"Call them what you will, dear," he said, "but let them lie. They belong to a dead past. It is the future which concerns us."

She drew a little closer to him. For the first time he felt his pressure upon her fingers returned.

It seemed to him as she sat there, with quivering lips, that it was indeed the weary shop-girl of the Edgware Road who was with him once more. There was a light in her eyes as of some new understanding.

A great yearning swept over Powers with the memory of that rain-swept, wind-tossed bay. All the scientific aspirations, the quiet culture, and the easy, pleasant days of sybaritical studentship which had filled his life were suddenly things of the past. His pa.s.sionate love for Eleanor was predominant. He was like a man afflicted with a strange fever of unknown origin, which no physician could prescribe for, and which he himself was powerless to resist.

In his room that night he sat under his student's lamp into the small hours, writing--writing....

It was the last chance and he was going to stake his all upon it. He was appealing to the old German professor of his student days, the man who more than any other could aid him at this time.

A week later he took Eleanor back to London and placed her in the great specialist's hands. And then followed weary days and nights of anxious waiting when all but hope seemed fled. Then came a day when his library door opened softly and the great German doctor looked at Powers benevolently through his double gla.s.ses.

"My young friend," he said, "the work is finished. My last visit to this most interesting of patients has been paid. I await now only the confirmation of our theories."

Powers, though outwardly cool, was trembling with excitement.