THE
Seven Streams
BY
WARWICK DEEPING
Author of “The Rust of Rome,” “The Red Saint,”
“Uther and Igraine,” etc. etc.
CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED
London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne
MCMXI
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
TO
My Dear Sister
KATHLEEN
This Dream Romance is Dedicated
“Sleep after toyle, port after stormie seas,
Ease after warre, death after life, does greatly please.”
Spenser, The Faerie Queen.
“Dreams;
Which are the children of an idle brain
Begot of nothing but vain phantasy.”
Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet.
THE SEVEN STREAMS
CHAPTER I
For a night and a day Tristan le Sauvage hadwatched his arms before the high altar of the chapelof Purple Isle. For a night and a day he had seenthe long tapers glimmering towards their silversockets, under the painted roof. Dawn light andevening glow had shone through the latticed casementseast and west, dusting the stones with colour,carving deep shadows from sculptured pillar andfrom moulded arch. Not a sound had broken thesilence of the tombs. Alone before the GreatCross, Tristan had kept vigil, chastening his manhoodfor quest beyond the sea. Two months hadpassed since a great ship with gleaming sails hadswooped like a falcon upon Purple Isle, and carriedthence that white dove, Columbe the Fair.
The sun had descended in a whorl of crimsonflame when Tristan rose up from before the altar,and passed out to his kinsfolk who ha