Violet Jacob > Stories told by the miller

THE TREE OF PRIDE 103
bound about with cords of silver and livid
purple poppies. Their petals were dropping
down and falling in the King’s path. A dull
dark blue garment was wound round her which
left only her bare arms free and trailed over the
wall below her feet, mixing with her heavy
plaits and the silver tassels at the ends of them.
She smiled, bending forward till she looked
as though she must fall from her high place ;
she was like some great unearthly gull poised
upon a wave’s crest.
“ Soon it will be too dark to travel among
these precipices,” she cried. “ Come up, O
King, before the light falls. The way winds
up to my gates.”
And, indeed, the path took a turn at the end
of the ledge, and, twisting like a ribbon, van¬
ished in the vapour.
There was no going back, for the chasm was
behind him, and the light, as she said, was
failing ; so he rode upwards till he came to a
gate whose top was lost in the clouds. It
opened, disclosing a castle, and inside it the
lady was coming to meet him, her draperies
trailing behind her and the silver tassels on her
plaits making a tinkling sound as they swept