I had seen no house or trace of men between here and Tenby.
I hitched the bridle rein over a low bough, and leaving my horse
went toward him to set him loose, wondering who had left him here.
And as I drew my seax and went to cut the lashings he writhed
afresh and cried piteously for mercy in what sounded like bad Saxon
from behind the cloth across his face, as though he deemed that I
came to slay him. I did not notice the strangeness of his using my
own tongue here in the heart of a Welsh land at the time, but
thought he took me for one of those who had bound him.
"Fear not," I said, speaking in Welsh to comfort him.
And if anything, that seemed to terrify him yet more.
"Mercy, good Thane--mercy!" he mumbled from his half-stifled lips.
Then it seemed to me that it was strange that he knew what I was,
and before I cut the bonds I took the cloth from his face, and lo!
the man was Evan the outlaw, my enemy!
That told me why he feared me in good truth, for he had need to do
so, and I stood back and looked at him with the bright weapon still
in my hand, and he cried and begged for mercy unceasingly. It
seemed but right that he should be bound helplessly as he had bound
me, yet he had not the bitterness of seeing a friend look on him
without knowing him as had I. It was a foe whom he saw, and that a
righteous one.
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