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Agitha would have shrunk back, but the queen grasped her hand. The swords of the men of the Pictish race waved over her. They dragged her forward. They stood before the cave of the potent Elgiva. "Elgiva! worker of wonders!" exclaimed the queen; "Bethoc, thy servant, is come. The victim also is here Agitha, the morning-star.
As a great wave rolleth in majesty to the shore, so advanced the warrior ships of Chylde Wynde, the subduer of heroes. The people came forth to meet him with a shout of joy. "He is come," they cried; "the favoured of the stars, the Chylde of the sharp sword, is come to deliver Agitha the beautiful, to break the spell of her enchantment." He heard the dark tale. His bosom heaved.
He hath wrung my soul for thee, Agitha. Thou didst give me thy heart when the sacred moon rose over the rocky Ferns and beheld us; and while the ministering spirits that dwell in its beams descended as a shower of burning gold upon the sea, and, stretching to the shore, heard us. We exchanged our vows beneath the light of the hallowed orb, while the stars of heaven hid their faces before it.
"Come forth, my daughter!" cried the enchantress. Agitha sprang from her disguise of skins. She sank on the breast of her hero. The people beheld her from afar. Their shout of joy rang across the sea. It was echoed among the hills. A scream rose from the tower of Ida. From the highest turret Bethoc the queen had sprung. In pieces was her body scattered at the foot of the great cliff.
"O king!" answered the Chylde "thou who holdest the fate of princes in thy hands, and the shadow of whose sceptre stretcheth over many nations the uplifting of whose arm turneth the tide of battle swear unto me, by the spirit of mighty Woden, that while I am doing that which thou requirest, and ere I can return to lay a crown at thy feet, swear that thou will not bless another king, for an offered kingdom, with the hand of Agitha, in whom my soul liveth!"
Envy and hatred gleamed in her eyes, like lightnings round the sides of a dark cloud. The countenance of Agitha fell; for she knew that her father in his wrath was fiercer than the wild boar of the forest when at bay; and she feared to reply to the sneer of the wife in whom his eyes delighted.
"The queen," answered Bethoc, "the wife of the mighty Ethelfrith, she calleth thee, she invoketh thine aid. The strongest spirits obey thee the spirits of the earth, of the air, and of the sea. Then help me, thou that art more powerful than the kings of the earth, that art stronger than the fate of the stars; help rid me of mine enemy whom I hate, even of Agitha, the daughter of the king.
A hundred princes sighed for the hand of the bright-haired Agitha; but their tales of love had no music for her ear, and they jarred upon her soul as the sounds of a broken instrument. She bent her ear only to listen to the song of affection from the lips of the Chylde Wynde even to Chylde Wynde of the sharp sword and the unerring bow, who was her own kinsman, the son of her father's brother.
Again the voice of the enchantress came forth from the cave, saying "In seven days come unto me again bring with thee the Princess Agitha; and Elgiva, the enchantress, will do towards her as Bethoc, the daughter of the weird thane, hath requested." Thus did the queen, while Ethelfrith, her lord, was making war against a strange king in a far country.
Then thus replied the warrior Chylde: "Agitha thou that art fairer, milder than the light that plays around the brows of the summer moon, and dearer to me than a mother's milk to the lips of her babe it is for thee that my countenance is sad, and my soul troubled. For thy father has pierced my spirit with many arrows; yea, even with the poisoned arrows of a deadly foe.
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