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 flambeaux, with
smoking boar's flesh, deer'