"
"Kill him and have done. That is what we meant to do when we laid
up for him."
So said many growling voices, and I certainly thought that the end
was very near.
"Ay, and have ourselves hung in a row that will reach from here to
the bridge," the leader said coolly. "Mind you this, that with the
Welsh up against us we cannot get to Exmoor, and with the Saxons
out also we cannot win to the Mendips, as we have done before now."
"There is the fen."
"And all the fenmen Owen's own men. Little safety is there in
that."
"But he slew Morgan, as they say."
"Worse luck for Morgan therefore. What is that to you and me, when
one comes to think of it?"
Now I began to understand the matter more or less. It seemed to me
that these were Morgan's outlaws, and that somehow they had heard
all the story. No doubt that was easy enough, for it would be all
over Norton before the night was very old after our coming. And
these outlaws have friends everywhere. So they had laid up for me,
and now the leader was frightened, as it would seem, or else he had
some other plan in his head. It did not seem that he had wished me
to be slain, from the first, if it could be helped. Maybe the
others had forced him to waylay me. A leader of outlaws has little
hold on his men.
"Let him swear to say nought of us, and let him go then," one of
the other leaders said in a surly way.
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