A score of men from
the gate were already clustered there on the earthworks, talking
fast as Welshmen will, but heedful to challenge us as we came. I
saw that they had somewhat on the ground in the midst of them.
"Here is a strange affair, my Prince," one of them said, as he held
out his hand to help Owen up the earthworks.
The group stood aside for us to look on what they had found, and
that was a man, fully armed in the Welsh way of Gerent's guards,
but slain by the well-aimed blow of a strong seax that was yet left
where it had been driven home above the corselet. There was a war
bow and two more arrows lying at the foot of the rampart, as if
they had been wrested from the hand of the archer and flung there.
The men had not seen these, but I looked for them at once when I
saw that there was no bow on the slain man.
"Who is this?" Owen said gravely, and without looking closely as
yet.
"It is Tregoz of the Dart, whom the king seeks," one or two of the
men said at once.
I had known that it must be he in my own mind before the name was
spoken. There fell a silence on the rest as the name was told, and
all looked at my foster father. There was plainly some fault in the
watching of the rampart that had let the traitor find his way here
at all.
"Which of you was it who slew him?" asked Owen.
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