The Hot Swamp

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; something of the sort, I believe, in honour of my return,” answered the prince, a good deal annoyed by the turn the conversation had taken.

“Well, then, you shall see her then; for she has only just arrived, and is too tired to see any one,” continued Gadarn, with a suppressed yawn; “and you’ll be sure to fall in love with her; but you had better not, for her affections are already engaged. I give you fair warning, so be on your guard.”

The prince laughed, and assured his friend that there was no fear, as he had seen thousands of fair girls both in East and West, but his heart had never yet been touched by one of them.

At this the chief laughed loudly, and assured Bladud that his case had now reached a critical stage: for when young men made statements of that kind, they were always on the point of being conquered.

“But leave me now, Bladud,” he continued, with a yawn so vast that the regions around the uvula were clearly visible; “I’m frightfully sleepy, and you know you have shortened my nap this afternoon.”

The prince rose at once.

“At all events,” he said, “I am to understand, before I go, that Cormac has been seen?”

“O yes! Certainly; no doubt about that!”

“And is well?”

“Quite well.”

Fain to be content with this in the meantime, Bladud hurried to the apartment of his sister.

“Hafrydda!” he exclaimed, “has Gadarn gone out of his mind?”

“I believe not,” she replied, sitting down beside her brother and taking his hand. “Why do you ask?”

“Because he talks—I say it with all respect—like an idiot.”

Hafrydda laughed; and her brother thereupon gave her a full account of the recent interview.

“Now, my sister, you were always straightforward and wise. Give me a clear answer. Has Cormac been found?”

“No, he has not been found; but—”

“Then,” interrupted Bladud, in a savage tone that was very foreign to his nature, “Gadarn is a liar!”

“Oh, brother! say not so.”

“How can I help it? He gave me to understand that Cormac has been found—at least, well, no, not exactly found, but seen and heard of. I’m no better than the rest of you,” continued Bladud, with a sarcastic laugh. “It seems as if there were something in the air just now which prevents us all from expressing ourselves plainly.”

“Well, then, brother,” said Hafrydda, with a smile, “if he told you that Cormac has been seen and heard of, and is well, surely that may relieve your mind till to-morrow, when I know that some one who knows all about the boy is to be at our festival. We begin it with games, as usual. Shall you be there?”

“I’d rather not,” replied the prince almost testily; “but, of course, it would be ungracious not to appear. This, however, I do know, that I shall take no part in the sports.”

“As you please, brother. We are only too glad to have you home again, to care much about that. But, now, I have something of importance to tell you about myself.”

Bladud was interested immediately; and for the moment forgot his own troubles as he gazed inquiringly into the fair countenance of the princess.

“I am going to wed, brother.”

“Indeed! You do not surprise me, though you alarm me—I know not why. Who is the man?—not Gunrig, I hope.”

“Alas! no. Poor Gunrig is dead.”

“Dead! Ah, poor man! I am glad we met at the Swamp.”

Bladud looked sad for a moment, but did not seem unduly oppressed by the news.

“The man who has asked me to wed is your friend Dromas.”

“What!” exclaimed the prince, in blazing surprise, not unmingled with delight. “The man has been here only a few hours! He must have been very prompt!”

“It does not take many hours to ask a girl to wed; and I like a prompt man,” returned the princess, looking pensively at the floor.

“But tell me, how came it all about? How did he manage it in so short a time?”

“Well, brother dear—but you’ll never tell any one, will you?”

“Never—never!”

“Well, you must know, when we first met, we—we—”

“Fell in love. Poor helpless things!”

“Just so, brother; we fell, somehow in—whatever it was; and he told me with his eyes—and—and—I told him with mine. Then he went off to find you; and came back, having found you—for which I was very grateful. Then he went to father and asked leave to speak to me. Then he went to mother. What they said I do not know; but he came straight to me, took my hand, fixed his piercing black eyes on me, and said, ‘Hafrydda, I love you.’”

“Was that all?” asked Bladud.

“Yes; that was all he said; but—but that was not the end of the interview! It would probably have lasted till now, if you had not interrupted us.”

“I’m so very sorry, sister, but of course I did not know that—”

They were interrupted at that moment by the servitor, to whom the reader has already been introduced. He entered with a brightly intelligent grin on his expressive face, but, on beholding Bladud, suddenly elongated his countenance into blank stupidity.

“The old woman waits outside, princess.”

“Oh, send her here at once.” (Then, when the servitor had left.) “This is the person I mentioned who knows about Cormac.”

Another moment and the little old woman in the grey shawl was ushered in. She started visibly on beholding Bladud.

“Come in, granny. I did not expect you till to-morrow.”

“I thought I was to see you alone,” said the old woman, testily, in her hard, metallic voice.

“That is true, granny, but I thought you might like to see my brother Bladud, who has just returned home safe and well.”

“No, I don’t want to see your brother. What do I care for people’s brothers? I want to see yourself, alone.”

“Let me congratulate you, at all events,” interposed the prince, kindly, “on your having recovered your hearing, grannie. This is not the first time we have met, Hafrydda, but I grieve to see that my old friend’s nerves are not so strong as they used to be. You tremble a good deal.”

“Yes, I tremble more than I like,” returned the old woman peevishly, “and, perhaps, when you come to my age, young man, and have got the palsy, you’ll tremble more than I do.”

“Nay, be not angry with me. I meant not to hurt your feelings; and since you wish to be alone with my sister, I will leave you.”

When he was gone Branwen threw back the grey shawl and stood up with flashing, tearful eyes.

“Was it kind—was it wise, Hafrydda, to cause me to run so great a risk of being discovered?”

“Forgive me, dear Branwen, I did not mean to do it, but you arrived unexpectedly, and I let you come in without thinking. Besides, I knew you could easily deceive him. Nobody could guess it was you—not even your own mother.”

“There must be some truth in that,” returned the maiden, quickly changing her mood, and laughing, “for I deceived my own father yesterday. At the Swamp he found me out at once as Cormac, for I had to speak in my natural voice, and my full face was exposed; but the grey shawl and the metallic voice were too much for him. Dear, good, patient, old man, you have no notion what a fearful amount of abuse he took from me, without losing temper—and I gave him some awful home-thrusts too! I felt almost tempted to kiss him and beg his pardon. But now, Hafrydda, I am beginning to be afraid of what all this deceiving and playing the double-face will come to. And I’m ashamed of it too—I really am. What will Bladud think of me when he finds out? Won’t he despise and hate me?”

“Indeed he will not. I know his nature well,” returned the princess, kissing, and trying to reassure her friend, whose timid look and tearful eyes seemed to indicate that all her self-confidence and courage were vanishing. “He loves you already, and love is a preventive of hate as well as a sovereign remedy for it.”

“Ay, he is fond of Cormac, I know, but that is a very different thing from loving Branwen! However, to-morrow will tell. If he cares only for the boy and does not love the girl, I shall return with my father to the far north, and you will never see Branwen more.”

Chapter Thirty Five

The Plot Thickens

During the residence of Gadarn at the court of King Hudibras, that wily northern chief had led the king to understand that one of his lieutenants had at last discovered his daughter Branwen in the hands of a band of robbers, from whom he had rescued her, and that he expected her arrival daily.

“But what made the poor child run away?” asked the king at one of his interviews with his friend. “We were all very fond of her, and she of us, I have good reason to believe.”

“I have been told,” replied the chief, “that it was the fear of Gunrig.”

“Gunrig! Why, the man was to wed my daughter. She had no need to fear him.”

“That may be so, but I know—though it is not easy to remember how I came to know it—that Gunrig had been insolent enough to make up to her, after he was defeated by Bladud, and she was so afraid of him that she ran away, and thus fell into the hands of robbers.”

While the chief was speaking, Hudibras clenched his hands and glared fiercely.

“Dared he to think of another girl when he was engaged to my daughter!” he said between his teeth. “It is well that Gunrig is dead, for assuredly I would have killed him.”

“It is well indeed,” returned Gadarn, “for if your killing had not been sufficient, I would have made it more effectual. But he is out of the way now, so we may dismiss him.”

“True—and when may we expect Branwen back again, poor child?” asked the king.

“In a day or two at latest. From what was told me by the runner who was sent on in advance, it is possible that she may be here to-morrow, in time for the sports.”

The wily chief had settled it in his own mind that Branwen should arrive exactly at the time when there was to be a presentation of chiefs; which ceremony was to take place just before the commencement of the sports. This arrangement he had come to in concert with a little old woman in a grey shawl, who paid him a private visit daily.

“Do you know, Gadarn, who this youth Cormac is, whom Bladud raves so much about?”

The northern chief was seized at that moment with one of those violent fits of sneezing to which of late he had become unpleasantly subject.

“Oh! ye—ye—y–ha! yes;—excuse me, king, but since I went to that Hot Swamp, something seems to have gone wrong wi’—wi’—ha! my nose.”

“Something will go worse wrong with it, chief, if you go on like that. I thought the last one must have split it. Well, what know you about Cormac?”

“That he appears to be a very good fellow. I can say nothing more about him than that, except that your son seems to think he owes his life to his good nursing at a critical point in his illness.”

“I know that well enough,” returned the king, “for Bladud has impressed it on me at least a dozen times. He seems to be very grateful. Indeed so am I, and it would please me much if I had an opportunity of showing my gratitude to the lad. Think you that there is any chance of finding out where he has disappeared to?”

“Not the least chance in the world.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed the king in surprise. “That is strange, for Bladud, who has just left me, says that he has the best of reasons for believing that we shall have certain news of him tomorrow. But go, Gadarn, and consult my doctor about this complaint of yours, which interrupts conversation so awkwardly. We can resume our talk at some other time.”

Gadarn obediently went, holding his sides as if in agony, and sneezing in a manner that caused the roof-tree of the palace to vibrate.

Returning to his own room he found the little old woman in grey awaiting him.

“You’ve been laughing again, father,” she said. “I see by the purpleness of your face. You’ll burst yourself at last if you go on so.”

“Oh! you little old hag—oh! Cormac—oh! Branwen, I hope you won’t be the death of me,” cried the chief, flinging his huge limbs on a couch and giving way to unrestrained laughter, till the tears ran down his cheeks. “If they did not all look so grave when speaking about you, it wouldn’t be so hard to bear. It’s the gravity that kills me. But come, Branwen,” he added, as he suddenly checked himself and took her hand, “what makes you look so anxious, my child?”

“Because I feel frightened, and ashamed, and miserable,” she answered, with no symptom of her sire’s hilarity. “I doubt if I should have followed Bladud—but if I had not he would have died—and I don’t like to think of all the deceptions I have been practising—though I couldn’t very well help it—could I? Then I fear that Bladud will forget Cormac when he learns to despise Branwen—”

“Despise Branwen!” shouted Gadarn, fiercely, as his hand involuntarily grasped the hilt of his sword. “If he did, I would cleave him from his skull to his waist—”

“Quiet you, my sweet father,” said Branwen, with a little smile, “you know that two can play at that game, and that you have a skull and a waist as well as Bladud—though your waist is a good deal thicker than his. I’m not so sure about the skull!”

“I accept your reproof, child, for boastfulness is hateful in a warrior. But get up, my love. What would happen if some one came into the room and found a little old hag sitting on my knee with her arm around my neck?”

“Ah, true, father. I did not think of that. I’m rather given to not thinking of some things. Perhaps that inquisitive servitor may be—no, he’s not there this time,” said Branwen, reclosing the door and sitting down on a stool beside the chief. “Now come, father, and learn your lesson.”

Gadarn folded his hands and looked at his child with an air of meek humility.

“Well?”

“Well, first of all, you must tell the king tomorrow, at the right time, that I have just come back, and am very tired and shall not appear till you take me to him while the other people are being presented. Then you will lead me forward and announce me with a loud voice, so that no one shall fail to hear that I am Branwen, your daughter, you understand? Now, mind you speak well out.”