"It does not matter," he said. "I cannot understand the man. At one
time I think that he was at the bottom of all the trouble, and at
another that he rescued me from the men who fell on the house. I
have seen little of him here until yesterday and today. There is a
man whom he calls 'the Bard,' who has tended me well enough with
the old dame, and another whom he names 'the Ovate,' whom I have
seen now and then--a younger man. I have set eyes on none but these
four since the men of the burning left me to them in the hills."
We asked him how all that went, and he told us what he could
remember. He had waked from some sort of a swoon while he was being
carried, in the midst of many men, and again had come to himself
when his litter had been set down. At that time there was seemingly
a quarrel between Morfed and his two followers and these men, and
it ended by the many departing and leaving him to the priest. That
was, as I knew, when the hillmen would not come into the lost
valley.
"They set my sword beside me," he said. "Presently in the dark I
saw the gleam of a pool, and I made shift to throw it into the
water, so that no outlaw or Morgan's man should boast that he wore
it. Ina gave it me. One of the men saw me throw it, and was for
staying, but the other said he had heard the splash and that it was
gone.
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