a
marvellous good leech. I have not fared so badly here, and I knew
Oswald would not rest until he found me."

"Now we must take you hence," I said. "Our men wait, and we can no
doubt get them here."

He smiled, being tired with the joy of seeing us and the speaking,
and I went out to Evan. The old woman still sat on the cromlech,
and when she saw me her voice rose afresh with more hard words,
which I would not notice.

"Evan," I said, "how shall we take the prince hence?"

"The litter they brought him on stands behind the hut yonder," he
answered; "for this man tells me so. Also he says that we are not
half a mile from our men, and that we can see one from just above
here."

So I sent him to bring them, telling him how the horses were gone,
so that we had no need to go back into the valley. To tell the
truth, I was as much relieved in my mind that we need not do so as
it was plain that he was. Then when he was gone I went back to
Owen, and he asked me if we had seen Morfed. I did not tell him
more than that we had done so, but that he was not here, one of his
two men having guided us, for the tale we must tell him by and by
might be better untold as yet.

"It does not matter," he said. "I cannot understand the man. At one
time I think that he was at the bottom of all the trouble, and at
another that he rescued me from the men who fell on the house. I
have seen little of him here until yesterday and today. There is a
man whom he calls 'the Bard,' who has tended me well enough with
the old dame, and another whom he names 'the Ovate,' whom I have
seen now and then--a younger man. I have set eyes on none but these
four since the men of the burning left me to them in the hills."

We asked him how all that went, and he told us what he could
remember. He had waked from some sort of a swoon while he was being
carried, in the midst of many men, and again had come to himself
when his litter had been set down. At that time there was seemingly
a quarrel between Morfed and his two followers and these men, and
it ended by the many departing and leaving him to the priest. That
was, as I knew, when the hillmen would not come into the lost
valley.

"They set my sword beside me," he said. "Presently in the dark I
saw the gleam of a pool, and I made shift to throw it into the
water, so that no outlaw or Morgan's man should boast that he wore
it. Ina gave it me. One of the men saw me throw it, and was for
staying, but the ot