y a
torrent; still facing the foe, now chiding, now smiting his own men, now
rushing alone on the pursuers, and halting their onslaught, he gained,
still unwounded, the stream, paused a moment, laughed loud, and sprang
into the wave. A hundred javelins hissed into the sullen and bloody
waters. "Hold!" cried Harold the Earl, lifting his hand on high, "No
dastard dart at the brave!"

CHAPTER IV.

The fugitive Britons, scarce one-tenth of the number that had first
rushed to the attack,--performed their flight with the same Parthian
rapidity that characterised the assault; and escaping both Welch foe and
Saxon, though the former broke ground to pursue them, they gained the
steeps of Penmaen.

There was no further thought of slumber that night within the walls.
While the wounded were tended, and the dead were cleared from the soil,
Harold, with three of his chiefs, and Mallet de Graville, whose feats
rendered it more than ungracious to refuse his request that he might
assist in the council, conferred upon the means of terminating the war
with the next day. Two of the thegns, their blood hot with strife and
revenge, proposed to scale the mountain with the whole force the
reinforcements had brought them, and put all they found to the sword.

The third, old and prudent, and inured to Welch warfare, thought
otherwise.

"None of us," said he, "know what is the true strength of the place which
ye propose to storm. Not even one Welchman have we found who hath ever
himself gained the summit, or examined the castle which is said to exist
there." [162]

"Said!" echoed De Graville, who, relieved of his mail, and with his
wounds bandaged, reclined on his furs on the floor. "Said, noble sir!
Cannot our eyes perceive the towers?"

The old thegn shook his head. "At a distance, and through mists, stones
loom large, and crags themselves take strange shapes. It may be castle,
may be rock, may be old roofless temples of heathenesse that we see. But
to repeat (and, as I am slow, I pray not again to be put out in my
speech)--none of us know what, there, exists of defence, man-made or
Nature-built. Not even thy Welch spies, son of Godwin, have gained to
the heights. In the midst lie the scouts of the Welch King, and those on
the top can see the bird fly, the goat climb. Few of thy spies, indeed,
have ever returned with life; their heads have been left at the foot of
the hill, with the scroll in their lips,--'Dic ad infer