ather's home. A great pillar an hundred feet
high had been built on the roof of Morgan's palace, and on the top of
this pillar a tiny room had been constructed, and in this room Delvcaem
was a prisoner.

She was lovelier in shape than any other princess of the Many-Coloured
Land. She was wiser than all the other women of that land, and she
was skilful in music, embroidery, and chastity, and in all else that
pertained to the knowledge of a queen.

Although Delvcaem's mother wished nothing but ill to Art, she yet
treated him with the courtesy proper in a queen on the one hand and
fitting towards the son of the King of Ireland on the other. Therefore,
when Art entered the palace he was met and kissed, and he was bathed and
clothed and fed. Two young girls came to him then, having a cup in
each of their hands, and presented him with the kingly drink, but,
remembering the warning which Credl had given him, he drank only from
the right-hand cup and escaped the poison. Next he was visited by
Delvcaem's mother, Dog Head, daughter of the King of the Dog Heads, and
Morgan's queen. She was dressed in full armour, and she challenged Art
to fight with her.

It was a woeful combat, for there was no craft or sagacity unknown to
her, and Art would infallibly have perished by her hand but that her
days were numbered, her star was out, and her time had come. It was her
head that rolled on the ground when the combat was over, and it was
her head that grinned and shrivelled on the vacant spike which she had
reserved for Art's.

Then Art liberated Delvcaem from her prison at the top of the pillar
and they were affianced together. But the ceremony had scarcely been
completed when the tread of a single man caused the palace to quake and
seemed to jar the world.

It was Morgan returning to the palace.

The gloomy king challenged him to combat also, and in his honour Art
put on the battle harness which he had brought from Ireland. He wore a
breastplate and helmet of gold, a mantle of blue satin swung from his
shoulders, his left hand was thrust into the grips of a purple
shield, deeply bossed with silver, and in the other hand he held the
wide-grooved, blue hilted sword which had rung so often into fights and
combats, and joyous feats and exercises.

Up to this time the trials through which he had passed had seemed so
great that they could not easily be added to. But if all those trials
had been gathered into one vast calamity they wou