seem
prone to do in this region--or had forgotten all about us! Come in and
sit ye down. Ho! varlet, set down the victuals. After all, you are
just in the nick of time. Well, Beniah, what think you of our search
to-day? Has it been close? Is it likely that we have missed any of the
caves or cliffs where robbers might be hiding?"

"I think not. It seems to me that we have ransacked every hole and
corner in which there is a chance that the lad could be found."

"The _lad_!" exclaimed Gadarn.

"I--I mean--your daughter," returned the Hebrew, quickly.

"Why don't you say what you mean, then? One expects a man of your years
to talk without confusion--or is it that you are really more anxious
about finding the boy than my girl?"

"Nay, that be far from me," answered the Hebrew. "To say truth, I am to
the full as anxious to find the one as the other, for it matters not
which you--"

"Matters not!" repeated Gadarn, fiercely.

"Well, of course, I mean that my friendship for you and Bladud makes me
wish to see you each satisfied by finding both the boy and the girl."

"For my part," said Bladud, quietly, "I sincerely hope that we may find
them both, for we are equally anxious to do so."

"Equally!" exclaimed Gadarn, with a look of lofty surprise. "Dost mean
to compare your regard for your young friend with a father's love for
his only child!"

The prince did not easily take offence, but he could not refrain from a
flush and a frown as he replied, sharply--

"I make no useless comparisons, chief. It is sufficient that we are
both full of anxiety, and are engaged in the same quest."

"Ay, the same quest--undoubtedly," observed the Hebrew in a grumbling,
abstracted manner.

"If it were possible," returned Gadarn, sternly, "to give up the search
for your boy and confine it entirely to my girl, I would do so. But as
they went astray about the same place, we are compelled, however little
we like it, to hunt together."

"Not compelled, chief," cried Bladud, with a look and a flash in his
blue eye which presaged a sudden rupture of friendly relations. "We can
each go our own way and hunt on our own account."

"Scarcely," replied the chief, "for if you found my daughter, you would
be bound in honour to deliver her up; and if I found your boy, I should
feel myself bound to do the same."

"It matters not a straw which is found," cried the Hebrew, exasperated
at the prospect of a quarrel between the two at su