if he answered as a child, his face was sullen as of a child
that is minded to rebel, and I knew that he would try not to tell
me aught.

"You lie," I said coldly. "Neither Christian priest nor Druid would
dare set a prince of Cornwall in an unhallowed grave. Tell me the
truth."

"Ay, I lied," he said, speaking in a strange voice that seemed to
come from him against his will. And then he spoke quickly, without
faltering or excuse. "I led the men who should slay the despiser of
the faith of his youth and friend of the Saxon, and we came to the
house and destroyed it, but they slew him not. Sorely wounded he
was, and yet they would not do my bidding and make an end, but
murmured at me. Then they bore him away into the hills, saying that
they would heal him of his hurts and thereafter win his pardon, for
he was ever forgiving, and it is true that I told them not who it
was they were to slay. I said that it was Oswald the Saxon, who
slew Morgan, and they were glad. I do not know how it has come to
pass that you are here. I hate you!"

"Speak on, Morfed," I said, for he had stayed his words on that,
and I bent all my mind into that command as it were, so that he
knew that I meant to be his master in this.

"Why should I not speak," he said dully. "Let me end quickly. Ay, I
went with them, thinking that he would die on the way, for he was
sorely wounded, and I mocked them and threatened them in vain. I
led them to this place, and when they knew it they fled, and left
him to me. Wherefore I brought him here, that I might see him
die--I and these two carried him on the litter the men made. Then
will I bury him in no hallowed grave, for I myself spoke the
uttermost ban of Holy Church against him, for that he had herded
with the men of the Saxons who follow Canterbury, and has wrought
for peace with them."

Then I knew at last that Owen was not dead, and I think that in my
gladness I lost my hold on Morfed, as it were, for I half forgot
him. And at that moment there came a little cry from one of the men
who waited by the flat altar stone, and both of them looked to
Morfed for some command, as if a time had come. The stone was in
full light now, and I noted that the shadow of the menhir was
creeping toward its base, but not yet quite pointing to it.

But Morfed did not answer the cry, and the great adder, roused by
it, moved restlessly in its coils, darting its long forked tongue
into the hollow of the stone as if it sou