more than two hours
from setting, and that therefore I had had a great sleep, which
indeed I needed somewhat sorely after that last night. The sky had
cleared, but here and there the rain drifted from the sky over the
hills to the west. I sprang to my feet, somewhat angry.

"You should have waked me earlier," I said. "Now it grows late for
our quest."

"About time to begin it, master," the Dane said, "if we do not want
to run our heads into parties from the palace. Maybe they will be
out also on the same business. What we seek cannot be far from
thence."

Then we mounted and rode down stream, quickly at first, with a wary
eye for any comers, searching the banks for traces of wheels,
carelessly for a few miles, and afterward more closely. But we saw
nothing more than old marks. The track ended, and we climbed the
rising ground above the river, and sought it there, found it, and
went back to the water, for no cart had newly passed to it here.
And so we went until we were but a mile or two from the palace, and
then we were fain to go carefully.

In an hour I was due in the copse to meet Selred, and then men
would be gathered in the palace yards in readiness for supper, so
that we might have little trouble in being unseen there. Now, on
the other hand, men from the forest and fields might be making
their way palaceward for the same reason.

"I would that we could find some place where we might hide the
horses for a while," I said. "What is that yonder across the
river?"

There was some sort of building there, more than half hidden in
bushes and trees. Toward it a little cattle track crossed the
water, showing that there was a ford.

"The track passes the walls, and does not go thereto," said Erling.
"It may be worth while to see if there is a shelter there."

So across the ford we rode, with the trout flicking in and out
among the horses' hoofs. The building, whatever it was, stood a
hundred yards or more from the river on a little southern slope
which had been once terraced carefully. Over the walls, which were
ruinous, the weeds grew rankly, and among them a young tree had
found a rooting. The place had been undisturbed for long years; and
I thought that it seemed as if men shunned it as haunted, for of a
certainty not a foot had gone within half arrowshot of it this
spring.

We stood in the cattle track and looked at it, doubting, for no man
cares to pass where others have feared to step for reasons not
k