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as if he had been a feather. Arkal and Beniah sprang down the bank to his assistance, and were themselves nearly swept into the flood which had swallowed up the hunter, but Konar was not quite gone. Another moment and his legs appeared above the flood, then his head turned up, and then the raging waters tossed him as if contemptuously on a projecting spit of bank, where he lay half in and half out of the torrent.

In a moment both Arkal and the Hebrew were at the spot, seized the hunter by an arm, the neck of his coat, and the hair of his head, and drew him out of danger; but no sign of life did the poor man exhibit as he lay there on the grass.

Meanwhile the energetic labourers at the lower end of the drain heard the turmoil and stood motionless with surprise, but were unable to see what caused it, owing to a thick bush which intervened. Another moment and they stood aghast, for, round the corner of the only bend in the drain, there appeared a raging head of foam, with mud, grass, sticks, stones, and rubbish on its crest, bearing down on them like a race-horse.

With a yell that was as fully united as their method of work, the men scrambled out of the drain and rushed up the bank, exhibiting a unity of purpose that must have gladdened the heart of Captain Arkal. And they were not a moment too soon, for the last man was caught by the flood, and would have been swept away but for the promptitude of his fellows.

“H’m! it has saved you some work, lads,” observed the captain, with a touch of grave irony as he pointed to the portion of the bank on which they had been engaged. He was right. The flood had not only overleaped this, but had hollowed it out and swept it clean away into the river—thus accomplishing effectively in ten minutes what would have probably required the labour of several hours.

On carrying Konar up to the village of the Swamp—afterwards Swamptown, later Aquae Sulis, ultimately Bath—which had already begun to grow on the nearest height, they found that Bladud and his party had just arrived from the last of the searching expeditions.

“What! Beniah?” exclaimed the prince, when the Hebrew met him. “You have soon returned to us. Is all well at home?”

“All is well. I am sent on a mission to you, but that is not so urgent as the case of Konar.”

As he spoke the young men laid the senseless form on the ground. Bladud, at once dismissing all other subjects from his mind, examined him carefully, while Brownie snuffed at him with sympathetic interest.

“He lives, and no bones are broken,” said the prince, looking up after a few minutes; “here, some of you, go fetch hot water and pour it on him; then rub him dry; cover him up and let him rest. He has only been stunned. And let us have something to eat, Arkal. We are ravenous as wolves, having had scarce a bite since morning.”

“You come in good time,” replied the captain. “Our evening meal is just ready.”

“Come along, then, let us to work. You will join us, Beniah, and tell me the object of your mission while we eat.”

The men of old may not have been epicures, but there can be no question that they were tremendous eaters. No doubt, living as they did, constantly in fresh air, having no house drains or gas, and being blessed with superabundant exercise, their appetites were keen and their capacities great. For at least ten minutes after the evening meal began, Bladud, Arkal, Dromas, little Maikar, and the Hebrew, were as dumb and as busy as Brownie. They spake not a single word—except that once the prince took a turkey drumstick from between his teeth to look up and repeat, “All well at home, you say?” To which Beniah, checking the course of a great wooden spoon to his lips, replied, “All well.”

There was roast venison at that feast, and roast turkey and roast hare, and plover and ducks of various kinds, all roasted, and nothing whatever boiled, except some sorts of green vegetables, the names of which have, unfortunately, not been handed down to us, though we have the strongest ground for believing that they were boiled in earthenware pots—for, in recent excavations in Bath, vessels of that description have been found among the traces of the most ancient civilisation.

“Now,” said the prince, wiping his mouth with a bunch of grass when he came to the first pause, “what may be the nature of your mission, Beniah?”

“Let me ask, first,” replied the Hebrew, also wiping his mouth with a similar pocket handkerchief, “have you found the lad Cormac yet?”

“No,” answered the prince, gloomily, and with a slightly surprised look, for the expression of Beniah’s countenance puzzled him. “Why do you ask?”

“Because that bears somewhat on my mission. I have to deliver a message from your father, the king. He bids me say that you are to return home immediately.”

“Never!” cried Bladud, with that Medo-Persic decision of tone and manner, which implies highly probable and early surrender, “never! until I find the boy—dead or alive.”

“For,” continued the Hebrew, slowly, “he has important matters to consider with you—matters that will not brook delay. Moreover, Gadarn bid me say that he has fallen on the tracks of the lad Cormac, and that we are almost sure to find him in the neighbourhood of your father’s town.”

“What say you?” exclaimed Bladud, dropping his drumstick—not the same one, but another which he had just begun—“repeat that.”

Beniah repeated it.

“Arkal,” said the prince, turning to the captain, “I will leave you in charge here, and start off by the first light to-morrow morning. See that poor Konar is well cared for. Maikar, you will accompany me, and I suppose, Dromas, that you also will go.”

“Of course,” said Dromas, with a meaning smile—so full of meaning, indeed, as to be quite beyond interpretation.

“By the way,” continued Bladud,—who had resumed the drumstick,—“has that fellow Gadarn found his daughter Branwen?”

Beniah choked on a bone, or something, at that moment, and, looking at the prince with the strangest expression of face, and tears in his eyes, explained that he had not—at least not to his, Beniah’s, absolutely certain knowledge.

“That is to say,” he continued in some confusion, “if—if—he has found her—which seems to me highly probable—there must be some—some mystery about her, for—it is impossible that—”

Here the Hebrew choked again with some violence.

“Have a care, man!” cried the prince in some alarm. “However hungry a man may be, he should take time to swallow. You seem to be contradicting yourself, but I don’t wonder, in the circumstances.”

“Verily, I wonder at nothing, in the circumstances, for they are perplexing—even distressing,” returned the Hebrew with a sigh, as he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his coat.

“Better not speak with your mouth full, then. Ah! poor Gadarn,” said Bladud, in an obviously indifferent tone of voice. “I’m sorry for him. Girls like his daughter, who are self-willed, and given to running away, are a heavy affliction to parents. And, truly, I ought to feel sympathy with him, for, although I am seeking for a youth of very different character, we are both so far engaged in similar work—search for the lost. And what of my father, mother, and sister?”

“All hale and hearty!” replied Beniah, with a sigh of relief, “and all anxious for your return, especially Hafrydda.”

At this point Dromas looked at the speaker with deepened interest.

“She is a good girl, your sister,” continued Beniah, “and greatly taken up just now with that old woman you met in my cave. Hafrydda has strange fancies.”

“She might have worse fancies than being taken up with poor old women,” returned the prince. “I’m rather fond of them myself, and was particularly attracted by the old woman referred to. She was—what! choking again, Beniah? Come, I think you have had enough for one meal. And so have we all, friends, therefore we had better away to roost if we are to be up betimes in the morning.”

Chapter Thirty Four. Bladud’s Return and Trials.

We need scarcely say that there was joy at the court of King Hudibras when Bladud returned home, cured of his terrible disease.

The first person whom the prince hurried off to visit, after seeing his father, and embracing his mother and sister, was the northern chief Gadarn. That jovial character was enjoying a siesta after the mid-day meal at the time, but willingly arose on the prince being announced.

“Glad to see you, Gadarn,” said Bladud, entering the room that had been apportioned to the chief, and sitting down on a bench for visitors, which, according to custom, stood against the inner wall of the apartment. “I hope your head is clear and your arm strong.”

“Both are as they should be,” answered Gadarn, returning the salutation.

“I thank you,” replied the prince, “my arm is indeed strong, but my head is not quite as clear as it might be.”

“Love got anything to do with it?” asked Gadarn, with a knowing look.

“Not the love of woman, if that is what you mean.”

“Truly that is what I do mean—though, of course, I admit that one’s horses and dogs have also a claim on our affections. What is it that troubles you, my son?”

The affectionate conclusion of this reply, and the chief’s manner, drew the prince towards him, so that he became confidential.

“The truth is, Gadarn, that I am very anxious to know what news you have of Cormac—for the fate of that poor boy hangs heavy on my mind. Indeed, I should have refused to quit the Swamp, in spite of the king’s commands and my mother’s entreaties, if you had not sent that message by the Hebrew.”

“Ah, Bladud, my young friend, that is an undutiful speech for a son to make about his parents,” said the chief, holding up a remonstrative forefinger. “If that is the way you treat your natural parents, how can I expect that—that—I mean—”

Here the chief was seized with a fit of sneezing, so violent, that it made the prince quite concerned about the safety of his nose.

“Ha!” exclaimed Gadarn, as a final wind up to the last sneeze, “the air of that Swamp seems to have been too strong for me. I’m growing old, you see. Well—what was I saying?—never mind. You were referring to that poor lad Cormac. Yes, I have news of him.”

“Good news, I hope?” said the prince, anxiously. “O yes—very good—excellent! That is to say—rather—somewhat indefinite news, for—for the person who saw him told me—in fact, it is difficult to explain, because people are often untrustworthy, and exaggerate reports, so that it is not easy to make out what is true and what is false, or whether both accounts may be true, or the whole thing false altogether. You see, Bladud, our poor brains,” continued the chief, in an argumentative tone, “are so—so—queerly mixed up that one cannot tell—tell—why, there was once a fellow in my army, whose manner of reporting any event, no matter how simple, was so incomprehensible that it was impossible to—to—but let me tell you an anecdote about him. His name was—”

“Forgive my interrupting you, chief, but I am so anxious to hear something about my lost friend that—”

“Ha! Bladud, I fear that you are a selfish man, for you have not yet asked about my lost daughter.”

“Indeed I am not by any means indifferent about her; but—but, you know, I have never seen her, and, to tell the plain truth, my anxiety about the boy drove her out of my mind for the moment. Have you found her?”

“Ay, that I have; as well and hearty as ever she was, though somewhat more beautiful and a trifle more mischievous. But I will introduce her to you to-morrow. There is to be a grand feast, is there not, at the palace?”

“Yes;

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