his
spirit, and nerved him with hate and the contempt true courage feels when
matched against fraud and villany.

On a fallen block of slate, cushioned with rich brown moss and rusted
weather-stains, the Water-Lady sat, and pointed to Farina the path of the
moon toward the round tower. She did not speak, and if his lips parted,
put her cold finger across them. Then she began to hum a soft sweet
monotony of song, vague and careless, very witching to hear. Farina
caught no words, nor whether the song was of days in dust or in flower,
but his mind bloomed with legends and sad splendours of story, while she
sang on the slate-block under sprinkled shadows by the water.

He had listened long in trance, when the Water-Lady hushed, and stretched
forth a slender forefinger to the moon. It stood like a dot over the
round tower. Farina rose in haste. She did not leave him to ask her aid,
but took his hand and led him up the steep ascent. Halfway to the castle,
she rested. There, concealed by bramble-tufts, she disclosed the low
portal of a secret passage, and pushed it open without effort. She paused
at the entrance, and he could see her trembling, seeming to wax taller,
till she was like a fountain glittering in the cold light. Then she
dropped, as drops a dying bet, and cowered into the passage.

Darkness, thick with earth-dews, oppressed his senses. He felt the clammy
walls scraping close on him. Not the dimmest lamp, or guiding sound, was
near; but the lady went on as one who knew her way. Passing a low-vaulted
dungeon-room, they wound up stairs hewn in the rock, and came to a door,
obedient to her touch, which displayed a chamber faintly misted by a
solitary bar of moonlight. Farina perceived they were above the
foundation of the castle. The walls gleamed pale with knightly harness,
habergeons gaping for heads, breastplates of blue steel, halbert, and
hand-axe, greaves, glaives, boar-spears, and polished spur-fixed
heel-pieces. He seized a falchion hanging apart, but the lady stayed his
arm, and led to another flight of stone ending in a kind of corridor.
Noises of laughter and high feasting beset him at this point. The Lady of
the Water sidled her head, as to note a familiar voice; and then drew him
to a looped aperture.

Farina beheld a scene that first dazzled, but, as it grew into shape,
sank him with dismay. Below, and level with the chamber he had left, a
rude banqueting-hall glowed, under the light of a dozen flambe