iffs in the
moonlight, but they did not come. That was good at least.

Then at last my heart leapt, for I saw, as a turn of the cliffs
opened out to me, another white beach with a cleft of the rocks
running up from it, and I thought it best to take the chance it
gave me, for I feared the blinding snow that would be here soon,
and I felt that the sea was rising. If my foes were after me they
would have been seen before now, as they came to the edge of the
cliffs to spy me out, and anyway I dreaded them less than the
growing cold. Moreover, I thought that Evan would hardly get many
men to follow him on a chase of what he had told them was a madman,
and a dangerous one at that. He had his goods to see to also.

So I ran the boat into the black mouth of the gorge, and beached
her well by good chance. I had little time to lose, but I tied her
painter to a rock at the highest fringe of tide wrack, in hopes
that she might be safe. It was so dark here that I did not think
that Evan would see her from above. And then I began to climb up
the rugged path that led out of the gorge to the hilltops.

There were bones everywhere in it. Bones and skulls of droves of
cattle on all the strand above the tide mark for many score yards.
Their ribs stuck out from the snow everywhere, and the sightless
eye sockets grinned at me as I stumbled over them. But I had no
time to wonder how they came there, for I must get to the summit
before Evan and his men reached it by their way along the cliff. I
ate handfuls of the snow and quenched my thirst that was growing on
me again, and my strength began to come back to me as I hurried
upward. I was a better man when at last I reached the top of the
gorge than when I came ashore.

CHAPTER VII. HOW OSWALD CROSSED THE DYFED CLIFFS, AND MET WITH FRIENDS.

Now I halted before I lifted my head above the skyline, and
listened with a fear on me lest I should hear the sound of running
feet, and I was the more careful because I knew that the snow which
lay white and deep on all the open land might deaden any sounds
thereof. But I heard nothing save the wail of the wind overhead as
it rose in gusts. I wondered if Thorgils would be able to bide in
this little cove, or must needs put out to seek some other haven.
There seemed to be a swell setting into it.

So I crept yet farther up the path, crouching behind a point of
rock, and thence I saw a dark line on the snow that seemed to
promise a road, and t