I suppose the Briton has old memories of the Druids of past days which yet bid him fear them.
"Hearken to me, and heed them not," sang Morfed in words that I could understand.

"Hearken, for you have much to learn." That was true, and I turned to him.

I supposed that he was in truth about to speak to me as I would, and straightway the look of Morfed was on my face, and the song went back to its old burden, and the flashing sickle held my eyes with its circling, and I knew that if I looked long I also must pass as it were from myself, as had those two, and I wrenched my eyes from him.
Then a movement on the stone caught my gaze, and I saw that the two men yet stood motionless, but across the sunlit patch which had crept nearer the centre where the hollowed bowl was, a great adder, greater than any I had ever seen, thick and spade-headed, had coiled itself in shining folds peaceably and seeming not to heed the men.

Only its head was raised a little, and it swayed as in time to the chant of the priest, while the long forked tongue flickered forth now and then restlessly.
But Morfed went on with his song and his waving, seeming to try to draw my look back to him, and I noted, as I glanced again at him, that a shade of doubt crossed his face, and at that a new thought came to me.

Maybe if he saw that I feared him not he would speak.
So I looked in his eyes and bade him be silent and hearken to what I said to him.
Some wave of anger flushed his face then, and he drew a pace nearer to me, but he was not silent, and the waving sickle was not still.
Neither of these things troubled me any longer, and I looked past them, in such wise that he might see that I meant him to obey me, even as one will look at a sullen thrall who delays to carry out an order given.