"Tell me, where is Owen?"
"In yonder pool," he said, as a child will answer its teacher.
But if he answered as a child, his face was sullen as of a child
that is minded to rebel, and I knew that he would try not to tell
me aught.
"You lie," I said coldly. "Neither Christian priest nor Druid would
dare set a prince of Cornwall in an unhallowed grave. Tell me the
truth."
"Ay, I lied," he said, speaking in a strange voice that seemed to
come from him against his will. And then he spoke quickly, without
faltering or excuse. "I led the men who should slay the despiser of
the faith of his youth and friend of the Saxon, and we came to the
house and destroyed it, but they slew him not. Sorely wounded he
was, and yet they would not do my bidding and make an end, but
murmured at me. Then they bore him away into the hills, saying that
they would heal him of his hurts and thereafter win his pardon, for
he was ever forgiving, and it is true that I told them not who it
was they were to slay. I said that it was Oswald the Saxon, who
slew Morgan, and they were glad. I do not know how it has come to
pass that you are here. I hate you!"
"Speak on, Morfed," I said, for he had stayed his words on that,
and I bent all my mind into that command as it were, so that he
knew that I meant to be his master in this.
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