At first we saw one or two of these watching us from a distance, but soon we passed into utter loneliness, and nought but the cries of the nesting curlew which we startled, and the wail of the plover round our heads, broke the solemn stillness of the grey rocks on every side.  Even our men grew silent, and the ring of sword on stirrup seemed too loud to be natural at last.  We were all fully armed, of course.

Then we came to a place where the hills drew together, and doubled fold on fold under a cloud of hanging mist that hid their heads, and as we rode, once Evan pointed silently to a rock, and I looked and saw strange markings on it that had surely some meaning in them, though I could not tell what it was.  And when I looked at him in question I saw that his face was growing pale and anxious, so that I thought we must be near the place which we sought.  So it was, for after we had left that stone some two score fathoms behind us, as we passed up a narrow valley, there opened out yet another, wilder and more narrow still, and at its mouth he would have us leave the men and go on with him.

Now, we had seen no man, but when it came to this, Howel said: 

“By all right of caution, we should have an outpost or two on those ridges.  If we are going into this place it will not do to be trapped there.”

So without question Evan pointed out places whence men could watch well enough against any possible comers, but he told me that we were close to the place we would see, and a call from our horns would bring help at once if it were needed.  Howel sent men by twos to the hilltops, and the rest dismounted and waited where we stayed them, while we three went on together up the valley.  I bade one of the men give Evan his spear, for he had none.

Grey and warm it was there, for the clouds hung overhead, and no breeze could find its way into the depths of this place, and it was very silent, but it was not the lost valley itself.  And now Howel, who had not yet so much as seemed to know Evan, rode alongside him for a moment, and spoke kindly to him, telling him that he was glad of all that I had told him, and at last asking him to forget that which he had done to him in the woods of Dyfed.  And that was much for the proud prince to ask, as I think, and I held him the more highly therefor in my mind.

And Evan replied by asking Howel to forget rather that he had ever deserved death at his hands.

“It shall be seen that I am not ungrateful to the Thane, my master, hereafter—­if I may live after seeing this place,” he said.

“Is it so deadly, then?” asked Howel, speaking low in the hush of the valley.

“It is said that those who see it must die—­at least, of us who ken the curse on it.  I do not think that it will harm you or the thane to see it, for you are not of this land at all.  I have known men see this valley by mischance, and they have died shortly, crying out on the terror thereof.  Yet none has ever told what he saw therein.”