Then said Owen: 

“Oswald, I have not withal, but I would fain reward the bard and the old woman for their care of me.  I think that even at Glastonbury there are none who would have healed these hurts of mine more easily than she.”

I had my own thoughts about the bard, but I said that I would see to this, and went to him.  The men were close at hand, and I saw that they led our horses with them.

“Bard,” I said, “Owen the prince speaks well of you.  Is it true that you would have slain him had you not been stayed on your way?”

“I do not know, Lord,” he answered.  “When I was with Morfed, needs must I do his bidding, even against my will.  Yet, away from him, I think that I should not have harmed the prince.  I am a Christian man, for all that you have seen.”

“There was somewhat strangely heathenish in what I did see,” I said.  “But I suppose that is all done with?”

“I might go across the sea to the British lands in the north or in the south and learn to attain to druidship,” he said.  “But I will not.  What I know shall die with me.  He who was the next to me above, even Morfed, is gone, and he who was next below is gone also.  Druid and Ovate both.  I am the only one of the old line left, and I will be the last.  Call me Bard no longer, I pray you.”

“Well,” I said, for there was that in the face of the man which told me that he was in earnest, “I will believe you, and the more that Owen trusts you.”

I let loose his hands then, and he stretched his cramped arms and thanked me.  I minded well what that feeling was like.

“What would Morfed have done with the prince?” I asked.

“I do not know.  I have heard him plan many things.  I think that if he had won him to his thoughts concerning the men of Canterbury he would have taken him home.  If not, I only know this, that he would never have been seen in this land again.  There was a thought of carrying him even across the sea to the Britons in the south—­in Gaul.  But of all things Morfed hoped that he would die here.”

So I supposed, but I said no more, for Evan and the men reined up close to us.  There was joy enough among them all as Owen was slowly and carefully laid on the rough litter.  And we left those two staring after us, silent.  But I suppose that the terror of that strange place will still lie on all the countryside, and I hold that since the day when the wizards of old time reared the menhir on that which it covered, with cruel rites and terrible words that have bided in the minds of men as a terror will bide, no man but such as Morfed has dared to pry into that valley lest the ancient curse should fall on them—­the curse of the Druid who would hide his secrets.  It may be, therefore, that it will not be known by the folk that the menhir has fallen, even yet, for we who did know it told them nought thereof.