bow, while Evan took the horses. The
leather scabbard was black with the bog water of the turf where it
had been set, but the blade within it was yet bright and keen.

Then I and the prince together walked slowly round the edge of the
black pool on the broad stretch of grass between the bog around it
and the loosely piled stones of the cliffs' foot. Here and there
even this turf shook to our tread, as if it too were undermined
with bog, and we went warily, therefore, wishing that we had not
left our spears by the horses.

"One would call such a place as this 'the devil's cauldron' in our
land," said Howel. "I mislike it altogether."

Then he sprang back with a start, and clutched my arm and pointed
to the ground at his feet. The skull of a man grinned up at us,
half sunk in the green turf, and the ends of ribs shewed how he to
whom it had belonged lay. There went a cold chill through me as I
looked; but I saw that the bones were old, very old. They had
nought to do with our trouble, and what had been to others about
the loss of him who had died here was long past and forgotten, or
amended. But for the sake of what had been I was fain to unhelm for
a moment as we stepped past them.

So we went on silently until we were halfway to the menhir, and
then we saw that there was yet another way into this place, for
across the water a jutting wall of rock had hidden a gorge that had
surely been cleft by water, for down it came a little stream that
seemed to sink into the turf so soon as it reached it.

"That is what fills the pool," said I, "and it must find its way
hence underground like the stream at Cheddar. The pool may be
fathomless. I would that I could look into its depths."

"What may not be in yonder gorge?" said Howel. "We must go and
see."

So we came to the menhir's foot, and though the bog came almost to
it there was yet a little mound of turf on which it stood, and I
went to that to see if thence I could peer deeper into the dark
water, but I could not.

"Come," Howel said, "it is midday, and I for one would not be on
these hills on Midsummer Eve. Call me heathenish if you like, but
this is an unlucky night whereon to walk in the haunts of the good
folk."

I had forgotten that so it was, and even now I only smiled at the
prince, for my mind was full of other things as I followed him
toward the glen whence the stream came. And now I was sure that
here was growing more clearly a trace as of a seldom trod