"One thing is certain," Evan said,--"no man set it in that place
meaningly, for there he must have known that it would be whelmed
soon or late."
"Nor could it have been dropped there," I answered. "None would go
so near the edge of the bog. It was surely thrown there. One
thought to hurl it into the pool. Yet if so he could have done it,
or would have tried again."
"Come, let us search the place," said Howel.
I hung the sword to my saddle bow, while Evan took the horses. The
leather scabbard was black with the bog water of the turf where it
had been set, but the blade within it was yet bright and keen.
Then I and the prince together walked slowly round the edge of the
black pool on the broad stretch of grass between the bog around it
and the loosely piled stones of the cliffs' foot. Here and there
even this turf shook to our tread, as if it too were undermined
with bog, and we went warily, therefore, wishing that we had not
left our spears by the horses.
"One would call such a place as this 'the devil's cauldron' in our
land," said Howel. "I mislike it altogether."
Then he sprang back with a start, and clutched my arm and pointed
to the ground at his feet. The skull of a man grinned up at us,
half sunk in the green turf, and the ends of ribs shewed how he to
whom it had belonged lay.
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