midnight
Maude was listening entranced , with parted lips ; Constance carelessly , as if she knew all about it beforehand , and were chiefly amusing herself by watching the rapt face of her fellow-listener . `` Long years thereafter , '' resumed Dame Agnes , `` ay , and even now , men said and say , that at times ye may yet hear the sound and see the sight of the drowned cities of the Lyonesse . Ever sithence that tempestuous night , the deep green sea lies heavy on the bosom of the lost land ; and no man of unpure heart , nor of evil life , ne unbaptised , ne unshriven , may see nor hear . But if one of Christian blood , a christened man , pure of heart and clean in life , that is newly shriven , whether man or maid , will sail forth at midnight over the green sea , and when he cometh to the place where lieth the Lyonesse , will bend him down from the boat , and look and listen , then shall come up around his ears soft weird music from the church bells in the silver steeples of the doomed cities : yea , and there have been so pure , and our Lady hath shown them such grace , that they have seen the very self streets down at the bottom of the sea , where the dead walk and speak as they did of old -- the knights and the ladies , as in the days gone by , when Arthur was King , a thousand years ago , when he held his court in the palaces of the lost land . And the Islands of Scilly , as men say , be the summits of the mountains , that towered once hoary and barren over the green forests and the rich cities . '' -LSB- This story is a veritable legend of the Middle Ages . -RSB- The story was being told to an uncritical and unchronological audience , or Dame Agnes might have received a gentle intimation that she was antedating the reign of King Arthur by the short period of two hundred years .