that the masses of
rocks which littered the edge of the cliff moved closer to each other,
starting out of the shadows into monstrous grotesque life, then circling
round her in a strange and dizzy whirl. It was as though the old Cornish
giants had come back to life for a corybantic dance with the demirips of
their race--dancing to the music of the sea sucking and gurgling into the
caves at the base of the cliffs. With swimming eyes Sisily watched them
careering and pirouetting around her. Faster and faster they went,
advancing, retreating, bending clumsily, then wavering, toppling, reeling,
like giants well drunk. A great stone fell into the sea with a splash, as
if dislodged by a giant foot. As though that signalled the cockcrow of
their glee, the dancers stopped in listening attitudes, and sank back into
rocks once more.

Sisily turned her eyes weakly from the slumbering rocks to the hills. The
light of a coming moon behind them showed the outline of the granite
pillars and stone altars of the Druids, where they had once sought to
appease their savage gods, like the Israelites of old. Sisily had often
meditated by these places of sacrifice, trying to picture the scene. Now,
as she looked, it was enacted before her eyes. A red light brooded on one
of the hills, growing brighter and brighter. Brutish shaggy figures came
out of the darkness, dragging a youth to the altar. Sisily saw him
distinctly. He was naked, with a beautiful face, haggard and white, and
was bound with cords. Suddenly he freed himself, and dashed down the slope
into the darkness. He was pursued and brought back, and the cries of his
pursuers mingled with an appalling scream for help which seemed to float
down the mountain side to where she lay, filling the silent air with
echoes.

This scene, too, faded away, and the beams of the rising moon, now
beginning to show over the hill-tops, formed in her mind the mirage of a
beautiful day--one of those exquisite days which Nature produces at long
intervals. Sisily saw a blue sky, sunlight like burnished silver, green
fields and clear pools in which everything was reflected ... a slumbrous
perfect day, with drowsy cattle knee-deep in grass, bees, and floating
butterflies, and the shrill notes of happy birds.

Once more the tangled loom of her fevered brain wove a new picture. She
was back in her bedroom at Flint House, looking down at the graven face of
the Moon Rock. As she looked, a great hand seemed to c