ling. "If you will
accept it, I can give you a word of comfort."

"Give it me," said Bladud; "for I need it much,--if it be but true."

"It is true," returned the Hebrew earnestly; "for in one of the books of
our holy men who spoke for the All-Father, it is written, `When my
father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.'"

"It is a good word," returned the prince; "and I can well believe it
comes from the All-Father, for is He not also All-Good? Yet I can
scarcely claim it as mine, for my father and mother have not forsaken
me, but I them."

A few minutes more, and Bladud rose to depart. He took the bow and
arrows in his left hand, and, totally forgetting for the moment the duty
of keeping himself aloof from his fellow-men, he shook hands warmly with
Beniah, patted the old woman kindly on the shoulder, and went out into
the dark night.

The moment he was gone Branwen started up with flashing eyes that were
still bedewed with tears, and seized the old man's hand.

"Child," he said, "thou hast been weeping."

"Who could listen to his telling of that old woman's escape from the
bull and the precipice without tears?" she replied. "But tell me, what
is this terrible disease that has smitten the prince?"

"It is one well known and much dreaded in the East--called leprosy."

Here the Hebrew went into a painfully graphic account of the disease;
the frightful disfigurement it caused, and its almost, if not quite,
certain termination in death.

"And have the queen and Hudibras actually let him go away to die alone?"
she exclaimed.

"Not so, my child. Before you interrupted us he told me that he had
left home by stealth on purpose. But, Branwen," continued the old man
with some severity, "how could you run such a risk of being discovered?"

"I ran no risk," she replied, with a laugh.

"Besides, it was not fair to pretend to be deaf and thus obtain all his
secrets."

"I don't care whether it was fair or not," replied the girl with a
wilful shake of her head. "And was it fair of you to back me up as you
did?"

"Your rebuke is just, yet it savours of ingratitude. I should not have
done so, but I was completely taken aback. Do you know that your face
is dirty?"

"I know it. I made it so on purpose. Now tell me--when are you going
away to tell my father and brothers about me?"

"I shall probably start to-morrow. But many days must pass before I can
bring them here, for, as you know, t