Now I stood apart, and Govan and his guest spoke together for a few moments before my turn to tell Howel of my plight should come, and almost the next thing that the prince said made me wonder that I had not thought who he was at once.  Of course, he was the father of the kindly princess who had crossed the sea with Thorgils, and had so nearly been the means of my earlier rescue.

“Nona, my daughter, is here at the cliff top, Father Govan,” Howel said.  “She came home in the Norse ship last night, as we planned; but tide failed for Tenby, and it chanced that the ship had to put in at the old landing place.  Now she wants to thank you for your prayers for her, and also to beg them for some sick man about whom she is troubling herself—­some poor hurt knave of a trader who crossed in the ship with her.”

“I will go out and speak with her,” Govan said, smiling.  “It is ever her way to think of the troubled.”

“Tell her that I will not keep her long in the cold,” Howel said.  “Bid her keep her horse walking, lest he take chill, if I may ask as much, Father.”

Govan threw his cowl over his head, and answered: 

“I will tell her.  Now, Prince, this friend of mine has come here in a strange way, and I think he needs help that you can give him.”

He passed out of the cliffward door and went his way up the long stairway.  Then Howel asked me how he could help me.

“Tell me about Dyvnaint also, for when I was a boy I was long at Gerent’s court.  Did not Govan say that you were fostered by one of the princes?  It is likely that I knew your foster father well, if so; was he Morgan?”

“Not Morgan, but Owen,” I answered, and at that Howel almost started to his feet.

“Owen!” he cried.  “Does he yet live?  Surely we all thought him dead, or else he had come hither to us when he was banished.  I loved him well in the old days, and glad I am that you are not Morgan’s charge.  Tell me all about Owen.  Is he home again?”

“Morgan is dead,” I answered, feeling that here I had met with a friend in all certainty.  “And because of that, Owen is in his place again, and I am here.  It has all happened in this week, and to tell you of it is to tell you all my trouble.”

Now he was all impatience to hear, and I told him all that needed to be told, until I came to the time when Owen was back at Norton with the old king.  Then he asked me some questions about matters there, and in the midst of my answers sprang up.

“Why,” he cried, “here I have forgotten the girl, and she ought to be hearing all this, instead of sitting in the cold on the cliff.  She is Owen’s goddaughter, moreover, and he was here only a little time before he was banished.  She can remember him well.”

“Stay, though,” he said, sitting down again.  “There is your own tale yet.  Let us hear it.  Maybe that is not altogether so pleasant.”

My own thought was that I was glad I might tell it without the wondering eyes of the fair princess on me, being afraid in a sort of way of having her think of me as the helpless sick man she had pitied.  So I hastened to tell all that story.