spoke she looked sidelong at Hallblithe, with shy and wheedling eyes; and
he wondered at her word, and a new hope sprang up in his heart that he
was presently to be brought face to face with the Hostage, and that this
was that love, sweeter than their love, which abode in him, and his heart
became lighter, and his visage cleared.

CHAPTER XII: THEY LOOK ON THE KING OF THE GLITTERING PLAIN

So now the women led them along up the stream, and Hallblithe went side
by side by the Sea-eagle; but the women had become altogether merry
again, and played and ran about them as gamesome as young goats; and they
waded the shallows of the clear bright stream barefoot to wash their
limbs of the sea-brine, and strayed about the meadows, plucking the
flowers and making them wreaths and chaplets, which they did upon
themselves and the Sea-eagle; but Hallblithe they touched not, for still
they feared him. They went on as the stream led them up toward the
hills, and ever were the meads about them as fair and flowery as might
be. Folk they saw afar off, but fell in with none for a good while,
saving a man and a maid clad lightly as for mid-summer days, who were
wandering together lovingly and happily by the stream-side, and who gazed
wonderingly on the stark Sea-eagle, and on Hallblithe with his glittering
spear. The black-haired damsel greeted these twain and spake something
to them, and they laughed merrily, and the man stooped down amongst the
grasses and blossoms of the bank, and drew forth a basket, and spread
dainty victuals on the grass under a willow-tree, and bade them be his
guests that fair afternoon. So they sat down there above the glistering
stream and ate and drank and were merry. Thereafter the new-comers and
their way-leaders departed with kind words, and still set their faces
towards the hills.

At last they saw before them a little wooded hill, and underneath it
something red and shining, and other coloured things gleaming in the sun
about it. Then said the Sea-eagle: "What have we yonder?"

Said his damsel: "That is the pavilion of the King; and about it are the
tents and tilts of our folk who are of his fellowship: for oft he abideth
in the fields with them, though he hath houses and halls as fair as the
heart of man can conceive."

"Hath he no foemen to fear?" said the Sea-eagle.

"How should that be?" said the damsel. "If perchance any came into this
land to bring war upon him, their battle-anger