ed, and nothing whatever
boiled, except some sorts of green vegetables, the names of which have,
unfortunately, not been handed down to us, though we have the strongest
ground for believing that they were boiled in earthenware pots--for, in
recent excavations in Bath, vessels of that description have been found
among the traces of the most ancient civilisation.

"Now," said the prince, wiping his mouth with a bunch of grass when he
came to the first pause, "what may be the nature of your mission,
Beniah?"

"Let me ask, first," replied the Hebrew, also wiping his mouth with a
similar pocket handkerchief, "have you found the lad Cormac yet?"

"No," answered the prince, gloomily, and with a slightly surprised look,
for the expression of Beniah's countenance puzzled him. "Why do you
ask?"

"Because that bears somewhat on my mission. I have to deliver a message
from your father, the king. He bids me say that you are to return home
immediately."

"Never!" cried Bladud, with that Medo-Persic decision of tone and
manner, which implies highly probable and early surrender, "never! until
I find the boy--dead or alive."

"For," continued the Hebrew, slowly, "he has important matters to
consider with you--matters that will not brook delay. Moreover, Gadarn
bid me say that he has fallen on the tracks of the lad Cormac, and that
we are almost sure to find him in the neighbourhood of your father's
town."

"What say you?" exclaimed Bladud, dropping his drumstick--not the same
one, but another which he had just begun--"repeat that."

Beniah repeated it.

"Arkal," said the prince, turning to the captain, "I will leave you in
charge here, and start off by the first light to-morrow morning. See
that poor Konar is well cared for. Maikar, you will accompany me, and I
suppose, Dromas, that you also will go."

"Of course," said Dromas, with a meaning smile--so full of meaning,
indeed, as to be quite beyond interpretation.

"By the way," continued Bladud,--who had resumed the drumstick,--"has
that fellow Gadarn found his daughter Branwen?"

Beniah choked on a bone, or something, at that moment, and, looking at
the prince with the strangest expression of face, and tears in his eyes,
explained that he had not--at least not to his, Beniah's, absolutely
certain knowledge.

"That is to say," he continued in some confusion, "if--if--he has found
her--which seems to me highly probable--there must be some--some mystery
about her,