And when I came to the way in which Evan brought me, Howel’s eyes flashed savagely, and a black scowl came over his handsome face, sudden as a thunderstorm in high summer.

“It will be a short shrift and a long rope for that Evan when I catch him,” he said.  “He comes here every year, and I suppose that the goods I have had from him at times have been plunder.  I would that you had ended him last night.  Now he has got away in peace, and is out of my reach, maybe, by this time.  Well, how went it?”

Then I told him the end of the tale, wondering how it was that Thorgils had let him go.  I asked the prince if he could explain that for me.

“Not altogether,” he said.  “Evan sent to me to ask me for men to guard the ship presently, after we began the feast, saying that he was going ashore with his goods, and was responsible to the shipmaster.  I told Thorgils, and he said it was well.  So I sent a guard, and presently Evan came and spoke with Thorgils for a little while, and drank a cup of wine, and so went his way.  Next morning, before he sailed, Thorgils came and grumbled about the loss of his boat, saying that Evan had taken some sick friend of his ashore in her, and that she had not come back.  I paid him for it too, because I like the man, and so does my daughter.  He sailed, and then I heard of the fight for the first time.”

Howel laughed a little to himself.

“Master Evan must have paid my rascals well to keep up the story of the sick man to Thorgils, for he said nothing to me of any fight.  Maybe, however, he never spoke to any of them, and it is likely that they would not say much to him.  And now, by the Round Table! if you are not the mad Norseman they prated of to me when I wanted to know who slew the two men, and if you are not the sick man that Nona is so anxious about!  Here, she must come and see you!”

With that he got up and went to the door before I could stay him, and called gaily to the princess, whose horse I could hear stamping high above us.

“Ho, Nona, here is a friend of yours whom you will be glad to see.  Ask Father Govan to let you come hither, and bid the men take your horse.”

So I must make the best of it, and I will say that I felt foolish enough.  It was in my mind, though, that I owed many thanks to the princess for all her kind thought for me as sick man.  I had already said as much to Howel.  So I began to try to frame some sort of speech for her.  One never remembers how such speeches always fail at the pinch.

The light footsteps came down the steps in no long time, and then the princess entered, dressed much as yesterday, with a bright colour from the wind, and looking round to see the promised friend.

“I have kept you long, daughter,” Howel said, taking her hand, “but I have been hearing good news.  Here is Oswald of Wessex, a king’s thane, but more than that to us, for he is the adopted son of your own godfather, Owen of Cornwall, and he brings the best of tidings of him.”