the
eyes of women, for the maidens laughed at my halting step and my sullen
features; and so in my youth I learned betimes to banish all thoughts
of love. But since they told me (as they declared to _thee_), that only
through that marriage, thou, O beloved prince! canst obtain thy fatter's
plumed crown, I yield me to their will."

"But," said the prince, "not until I am king can I give thee my sister
in marriage; for thou knowest that my sire would smite me to the dust,
if I asked him to give the flower of our race to the son of the herdsman
Osslah."

"Thou speakest the words of truth. Go home and fear not: but, when thou
art king, the sacrifice must be made, and Orna mine. Alas! how can
I dare to lift my eyes to her! But so ordain the dread kings of the
night!--Who shall gainsay their word?"

"The day that sees me king, sees Orna thine," answered the prince.

Morven walked forth, as was his wont, alone; and he said to himself,
"the king is old, yet may he live long between me and mine hope!" and he
began to cast in his mind how he might shorten the time.

Thus absorbed, he wandered on so unheedingly, that night advanced, and
he had lost his path among the thick woods, and knew not how to regain
his home; so he lay down quietly beneath a tree, and rested till day
dawned.

Then hunger came upon him and he searched among the bushes for such
simple roots as those with which, for he was ever careless of food, he
was used to appease the cravings of nature.

He found, among other more familiar herbs and roots, a red berry of
a sweetish taste, which he had never observed before. He ate of it
sparingly, and had not proceeded far in the wood before he found his
eyes swim, and a deadly sickness come over him. For several hours he lay
convulsed on the ground expecting death; but the gaunt spareness of his
frame, and his unvarying abstinence, prevailed over the poison, and he
recovered slowly, and after great anguish: but he went with feeble steps
back to the spot where the berries grew, and, plucking several, hid them
in his bosom, and by nightfall regained the city.

The next day he went forth among his father's herds, and seizing a lamb,
forced some of the berries into its stomach, and the lamb, escaping, ran
away, and fell down dead. Then Morven took some more of the berries and
boiled them down, and mixed the juice with wine, and he gave the wine in
secret to one of his father's servants, and the servant died.

Then