“Evan has a mind to tell Tregoz that he treated the Saxon well,” and so left me.  It seemed to me that I had heard that name at Norton.

When the best part of the band had gathered again they lit another fire fifty yards from me, and round it they talked and wrangled for a good half hour.  It was plain that they were speaking about me and my fate, but I could hear little of what they said.

The leader took not much part in the talk at first, but let the rest have their say.  And when they had talked themselves out, as it were, he told them his plans.  I could not hear them, but the rest listened attentively enough, and at the end of his speech seemed to agree, for they laughed and shouted and made not much comment.

Then the leaders got up and came and looked at me.

“Tell him what we are going to do with him, Evan,” one said to the chief.

So Evan spoke in the worst Saxon I had ever heard, and I thought that it fitted his face well.

“No good glaring in that wise,” he said; “if you are quiet no harm will come to you.  We are going to hold you as a hostage until your Saxon master or your British father pay ransom for you, and inlaw us again.  That last is a notion of my own, for I am by way of being an honest man.  The rest do not care for anything but the money we shall get for you from one side or the other, or maybe from both.  By and by, when we have you in a safe place, you shall write a letter for us to use, and I will have you speak well of me in it, so that it shall be plain that you owe your life to me, and then I shall be safe.  That is a matter between you and me, however.  None of these knaves ken a word of Saxon.”

I suppose that I showed pretty plainly what I thought of this sort of treachery to his comrades, for one of the others laughed at me, and said: 

“Speak him fair, Evan, speak him fair, else we shall have trouble with him.”

“I am just threatening him now,” the villain said in Welsh—­“after that is time to give him a chance to behave himself,” and then he went on to me in Saxon:  “Now, if you will give your word to keep quiet and go with me as a friend I will trust you, but if not—­well, we must take you as we can.  How do you prefer to go?”

He waited for an answer, but I gave him none.  I would not even seem to treat with them.

“Don’t say that I did not give you a chance,” he said; “but if you will go as a captive, that is your own fault.”

And as I said nothing he turned away, and said to the rest: 

“We shall have to bind him.  He will not go quietly.”

“How shall we get him on board as a captive?” one asked.

“That would be foolishness,” Evan said; “the next thing would be that every one would know who the captive that was taken out of Watchet was.  I have a better plan than that.  We will tie him up like a sorely wounded man, and so get him shipped carefully and quietly with no questions asked.”