He did not answer, but shrunk to my side, looking round him
fearfully.
"What comes, Lord," he said, whispering;--"see yonder?"
He pointed across the bare hillside, and I looked but saw nothing.
"I saw nought," I said. "Is it unlucky to speak of the place?"
"I saw somewhat leap from yonder rock," he whispered; "it went
behind that other."
Plainly the man was terrified, and I asked him what he feared.
"The good folk, Lord."
"Pixies?--Do they come when one speaks of the lost valley?"
"Speak lower, Lord,--lower! Look, yonder it is again!"
Then I also saw in the dusk the figure of a man who crept softly
from one great boulder to another, and without thinking of the
terror of the shepherd I spurred my horse, and rode straight for
the rock behind which the figure disappeared, having no mind to
have an arrow put into me at short range by one of the men of
Tregoz--or of Morfed--unawares.
The shepherd howled in fright when he was left, but I did not heed
him, and in a moment I was round the rock and almost on the
cowering man whom I had seen. He turned to fly, and I cried to him
to stop, but he only got another rock between me and him, for the
hillside was covered with them, and shrank behind it, so that I
could only see his wild eyes as he glared at me across it. He said
nothing, and I did not think that he was armed, so far as the dim
evening light would let me see.
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