e will tell what we need soon."

But beside him Evan seemed to be shrinking as in terror. 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. A captain of warriors will know what signs to watch
for in a man's face well enough, and slowly and at last I saw the
look for which I waited steal across the face of the man before me,
and then I raised my hand and said:

"Be still, and answer me."

The song stopped, and the lifted sickle sank with the hand that
held it, and the eyes of Morfed left mine and sought the ground.

"What will you?" he said. "Let me go, for it is time."

"When you have answered," I said sternly. "Tell me, where is Owen?"

"In yonder pool," he said, as a child will answer its teacher.

But