So she glanced round at me in some surprise, and then turned again to Thorgils.

“Some time you shall, for I love your songs.  Not now, for we have not time.”

“Thanks, Lady.  It will be a good song, and is shaping well in my mind.  There is a brave lady therein also.”

“Well, you have not told us who the brave man is.

“Did I not know that Oswald, son of Owen the Cornish prince, was by this time in Glastonbury, I should have said he was here, so great is the likeness.  It is a marvel.

“Now, Lord, you will forgive me, no doubt.”

“Ay, freely,” I said, turning round sharply.  “That is, if your friend has a sword as good as this,” and I shewed him the gemmed hilt of Ina’s gift from beneath the folds of my great cloak.

He stared at it, and then at my face again, and I took off my cap to him with a bow.

“It is strange that a shipmaster knows not his own passenger,” I said.

But he was dumb for a moment, and his mouth opened.  Nona laughed at him and clapped her hands with glee, and I must laugh also.

“By Baldur,” he gasped, “if it is not Oswald, in the flesh!  What witchcraft brought you here?  To my certain knowledge there is no ship but mine afloat now in the Severn Sea.”

“Why, then, I crossed with you, friend,” I said.

“That you did not—­” he began, but stopped short.

“Thorgils, Thorgils—­the sick man!” cried Nona.

“Oh!” said Thorgils, “can you have been Evan’s charge?”

“Ay.  Mind you that it was your own word that there might be danger from the friends of Morgan?”

Then I told him all, and he heard with growls and head shakings, which but for the presence of the lady might have been hard sayings concerning my captors.

But when I ended he said: 

“If ever I catch the said Evan there will be a reckoning.  All the worse it will be for him that for these five years past I have known him, and deemed him a decent and trustworthy man, for a Welsh trader.  I have fetched him back and forth with his goods twice or thrice a year for all that time, and now I suppose he has made me a carrier of stolen wares!  Plague on him.  I mind me now that betimes I have thought he dealt in cast-off garments somewhat, but that was not my affair.  Now one knows how that was.”

“I liked the man well, also,” said the princess, with a sigh.  “He has come here every year, and betimes as he shewed me his goods—­not those you spoke of, Thorgils—­it has seemed to me that he was downcast, and as one who had sorrow in his heart.  Maybe he had, for his ill doings.  He deserves to be punished, but yet I would ask that—­that if you lay hands on him you will be merciful.”

“He shewed little mercy to Oswald the thane,” growled Thorgils.  “However, Princess, I think that you may be easy.  He will not risk aught, and we shall see him no more.  But the knave would beguile Loki.  Never a word did I hear of any trouble, but he came and spoke to me as I sat with your men yonder, and paid me his passage money, and said he had asked for a guard for the ship as he wanted to be away with the sick man.  Also he said he would borrow the boat for his easier passage ashore.  I supposed she was smashed in the gale, as she came not back, and Howel paid me for her when I grumbled.”