Now as I thought of this girl, in a moment it flashed across me where I had seen her before.  It was on board the ship at Tenby, and she came with Dunwal and his daughter Mara.  I was certain of it, though I had only seen her that once, for there I was in a strange land, and so noticed things and people at which I should hardly have glanced elsewhere.  The Danish and British dress over there was strange to me also.

Then, as soon as I had a chance I asked the ealdorman for a few moments of private speech, and we went into his own chamber that opened on the high place of the hall where we had been sitting.  There I told him all the trouble, for surely I needed all help that I could find, and at the last I said: 

“Mara, the daughter of Dunwal, was at guest quarters with Jago.”

Then I saw the face of my friend paling slowly under its ruddy tan, and he rose and walked across the room once or twice, biting his lip as though in wrath or sore trouble.  I could not tell which it was, but I thought that he was putting some new thought together in his mind.

“It is plain enough,” he said at last, staying his walk at a side table.  “I saw my sick man pick up that horn the girl dropped, and he looked into it and laughed and drank from it, saying that it was a pity to waste good stuff.  See, here it is.  The curl of it may have kept a fair draught in it for him.”

There were several horns standing in their silver or gilded rests on the table at his elbow, and he held up that one which had been brought to me, and then dropped it.

It fell with its mouth upward, rocking on the bend in its midst, so that it might well have had a gill or two left in it, for it had a twist as well as the curve in its length, which was somewhat longer than usual.

“Poison!” he said in a low voice.  “That a friend should be thus treated at my own door, by my own servant!  What shall I say to you?”

“It is hard on you as on any one, Ealdorman,” I answered.  “But the girl did not come from Jago.  Mara sent her in some way.  I am sure it was she whom I saw at Tenby.”

“Ay,” he said, “one could not dream that a message seeming to come from honest Jago was not in truth from him.  The trick was sure to be found out, and that soon, though.”

“Not until the deed was done, maybe.  This is the first chance that the Welsh girl has had to hand me aught.”

The ealdorman held his peace for a moment, and then he broke out suddenly: 

“By all the relics in Glastonbury, that thrall saved your life!  He is no fool either, for he knew that the horn must be spilt in one way or the other, and it was worth while for you to run the risk of a fall rather than that you should drink it.  How had he knowledge of what was to be done?”

“Whoever wrote the warning told him.  It was a chance, however, that we did not come into the house.”

“There is some friend watching these traitors,” said Herewald.  “I did not know the thrall, but so often men from the hill who have followed us come here for the ale that they know will be going, that I thought nothing of a stranger more or less.  But why choose my house for this deed?”