Then we crossed the green without any one paying much heed to us, though I saw the women at the doors pitying me, and so we came to the wharf, alongside which a ship was lying.  There were several men at work on her decks, and it was plain that she was to sail on this tide, for her red-and-brown striped sail was ready for hoisting, and there was nothing left alongside to be stowed.  She was not yet afloat however, though the tide was fast rising.

Evan hailed one of the men, and he came ashore to him.  The bearers set down my litter and waited.

“Where is the shipmaster?” Evan asked.

The man jerked his thumb over his shoulder, and lifted his voice and shouted “Ho Thorgils, here is the Welsh chapman.”

I saw the head of my friend rise from under the gunwale amidships, and when he saw who was waiting he also came ashore.  Evan met him at the gangway.

“I thought you were not coming, master chapman,” he said.  “A little later and you had lost your voyage.  Tide waits for no man, and Thorgils sails with the tide he waits.  Therefore Thorgils waits for no man.”

Just for a moment a thought came to me that Thorgils was in league with the outlaws, and that was hard.  But Evan’s next words told me that in this I was wrong.  It would seem that the taking of his ill-gotten goods across the channel had been planned by Evan before he fell in with me, and maybe that already made plan was the saving of my life, by putting the thought of an easy way to dispose of me to some profit into the outlaw’s head.

“I had been here earlier,” he said, “but for a mischance to my friend here.  I want to take him with me, if you will suffer it.”

He pointed to me as he spoke, and Thorgils turned and looked at me idly.  I was some twenty yards from him as I lay, and I tried to cry out to him as his eyes fell on me, but I could only fetch a sort of groan, and I could not move at all.

“He seems pretty bad,” said Thorgils, when he heard me.  “What is amiss with him?  I can have no fevers or aught of that sort aboard, with the young lady as passenger, moreover.”

“There is nothing of that,” Evan answered hastily.  “It is but the doing of a fall from his horse.  The beast rolled on him, and he has a broken thigh, slipped shoulder, and broken jaw, so that it will be long before he is fit for aught again, as I fear.  Now he wants to get back to his wife and children at Lanphey, hard by Pembroke, and our leech said that he would take no harm from the voyage.  It is calm enough, and not so cold but that we may hap him up against it.  If I may take him, I will pay well for his passage.”

Thorgils looked at me again for a moment.