shapeless, and undefined it had lain amongst the rank weeds and
night-shade and trailing creepers on the marge of the pool, The laugh was
low yet fearful to hear.

Slowly, the thing moved, and rose, and took the outline of a human form;
and the Prophetess beheld the witch whose sleep she had disturbed by the
Saxon's grave.

"Where is the banner?" said the witch, laying her hand on Hilda's arm,
and looking into her face with bleared and rheumy eyes, "where is the
banner thy handmaids were weaving for Harold the Earl? Why didst thou
lay aside that labour of love for Harold the King? Hie thee home, and
bid thy maidens ply all night at the work; make it potent with rune and
with spell, and with gums of the seid. Take the banner to Harold the
King as a marriage-gift; for the day of his birth shall be still the day
of his nuptials with Edith the Fair!"

Hilda gazed on the hideous form before her; and so had her soul fallen
from its arrogant pride of place, that instead of the scorn with which so
foul a pretender to the Great Art had before inspired the King-born
Prophetess, her veins tingled with credulous awe.

"Art thou a mortal like myself," she said after a pause, "or one of those
beings often seen by the shepherd in mist and rain, driving before them
their shadowy flocks? one of those of whom no man knoweth whether they
are of earth or of Helheim? whether they have ever known the lot and
conditions of flesh, or are but some dismal race between body and spirit,
hateful alike to gods and to men?"

The dreadful hag shook her head, as if refusing to answer the question,
and said:

"Sit we down, sit we down by the dead dull pool, and if thou wouldst be
wise as I am, wake up all thy wrongs, fill thyself with hate, and let thy
thoughts be curses. Nothing is strong on earth but the Will; and hate to
the will is as the iron in the hands of the war-man."

"Ha!" answered Hilda, "then thou art indeed one of the loathsome brood
whose magic is born, not of the aspiring soul, but the fiendlike heart.
And between us there is no union. I am of the race of those whom priests
and kings reverenced and honoured as the oracles of heaven; and rather
let my lore be dimmed and weakened, in admitting the humanities of hope
and love, than be lightened by the glare of the wrath that Lok and Rana
bear the children of men."

"What, art thou so base and so doting," said the hag, with fierce
contempt, "as to know that another has supplant