“Well,” he said, “if that is all, I do not mind.  It would be better if the after cabin was empty, but of course the princess has that.  There is room for him to be stowed comfortably enough under the fore deck with your bales, however, and it will be warm there.  Ay, we will take the poor soul home, for his mind will be easier, and that will help his healing.  It is ill to be laid up in a strange land.  Get him on board as soon as you can, for there is but an hour to wait for tide.  I will ask no pay for his passage, for he is but another bale of goods, as it were, swaddled up in that wise, and I told you that I would take all you liked to bring for what we agreed on.”

Evan thanked him, and Thorgils laughed, turning away to go up the town, and saying that he would be back anon.  I groaned again as he passed me, and he looked straight in my eyes, which were all that he could see of me.

“Better on board than in that litter, poor fellow,” he said kindly; “it is a smooth sea, and we shall see Tenby in no long time if this breeze holds.”

He passed on with a nod and smile, and I could almost have wept in my rage and despair.  I could not have thought of anything more cruel than this, and there was a sour grin on Evan’s face, as if he knew what was passing in my mind.

Now they lifted me once more and carried me to the ship, setting me down amidships while they got the bales of goods on board.  She was a stout trading vessel, built for burden more than speed, but she seemed light in the water, as though she had little cargo for this voyage.  She had raised decks fore and aft, and there were low doors in the bulkheads below them that seemed to lead to some sort of cabins.  Under the forward of these decks the outlaws began to stow their bales, the man who had called Thorgils ashore directing them.

I lay just at the gangway, and a little on one side so as not to block it, and I watched all that went on, helplessly.  There was no one near me, or I think that I should have made some desperate effort to call a Norseman to my help.  Maybe Evan thought me safer here than nearer the place where all were busy, as yet, but presently I heard voices on the wharf as if some newcomers were drawing near, and Evan heard them also, and left his cargo to hasten to my side.  I saw that he looked anxious, and a little hope of some fresh chance of escape stirred in me, though, as they had carried me on board feet foremost, I could not see who came.

When they were close at hand their voices told me that one at least was a lady, and that she and her companions were Welsh.  I supposed that this was the princess of whom I had heard Thorgils speak just now.  I should know in a moment, for the first footsteps were on the long gangplank and pattering across it, while Evan began to smile and bow profoundly.

Then there came past my litter, stepping daintily across the planks, a most fair and noble lady, tall and black haired and graceful, wrapped against the sea air in the rare beaver skins of the Teifi River, and wonderful stuffs that the traders from the east bring to Marazion, such as we Saxons seldom see but as priceless booty, paid for with lives of men in war with West Wales in days not long gone by.