en we had gone that she had taught me to look in the
face of a fellow passenger, which would be token enough that I
understood.

Dunwal and his daughter had some few men and pack horses with them,
and one Cornish maiden who attended Mara, so that we were quite a
little train as we rode from Pembroke toward Tenby in the late
afternoon, with a score of Howel's guards to care for us in all
honour. Part of the way, too, Howel rode, and when we came to the
hill above the Caerau woods, and looked down on the winding waters
again, he said to me:

"I have forgotten to tell you that my men took Evan. By this time
he has met his deserts. I have done full justice on him."

"Thanks, Prince," I said with a shudder, as I minded what I had
saved the man from. "Did your men question him?"

Howel smote his thigh.

"Overhaste again!" he cried in vexation. "That should have been
done; but I bade them do justice on him straightway if they laid
hands on him. They did it."

I said no more, nor did the prince. It was in my mind that he was
blaming himself for somewhat more than carelessness. So presently
he must turn and leave us, and we bade him farewell with all thanks
for hospitality, and he bade me not forget Pembroke, and went his
way.

Then I found Dunwal pleasant enough as a companion, and so also was
Mara, and the few miles passed quickly, until we rode through the
gates of the strong stockade which bars the way to the Danes' town
across the narrow neck of the long sea-beaten tongue of cliff they
have chosen to set their place on. The sea is on either side, and
at the end is an island that they hold as their last refuge if need
is, while their ships are safe under one lee or the other from any
wind that blows.

Far down below us at the cliff's foot, as we rode through the town,
where the houses had been set anywise, like those at Watchet, and
were like them timber built, we could see to our left a little
wharf, and beside it the ship that waited us. And the wind was
fair, and the winter weather soft as one might wish it for the
crossing.

Now, so soon as Thorgils had seen the baggage of the Cornish folk
safely bestowed I had time for a word with him, taking him apart
and walking up the steep hill path from the haven for a little way,
as if to go to the town. And so I told him who this man was, and
what possible danger might be.

He heard with a long whistle of dismay:

"'Tis nigh as bad as crossing with Evan," he said