Beyond Pendragon came over the brow of a hill that 

 the Blue stepped forward from a dark company of 

 mountains and leaned over the shoreless sea 

 which fills the west and drowns the north. 

 All day he had been wandering alone, his 

 mind heavy with wonder over many things. 

 He had heard strange tales of late, tales about 

 his heroic father and the royal clan, and how 

 they were not as other men, but half divine. 

 They were not gods, he knew, for they could 

 be slain in battle or could die with the crowd- 

 ing upon them of many years : but they were 

 more terrible in battle than were the greatest 

 of men, and they had vision and knowledge 

 beyond the vision and knowledge of the druids, 

 and were lordly beyond all men in mien and 

 the beauty of courtesy, and lived beyond the 

 common span of years, and had secret com- 

 munion with the noble and invisible company. 

 He had heard, too, of his destiny : that he, 

 too, was to be a great king, as much greater 

 than Pendragon, than Pendragon was above 

 all the kings of the world. What was 

 Destiny, he wondered. Then, again, he 

 turned over and over in his mind all the names 

 he could think of that he might choose for his 

 own : for the time was come for him to put 

 away the name of his childhood and to take on 

 that by which he should be known among men. 



318 



