Then we ran out, bidding the captain of the guard to stand to arms as we passed through the great door of the palace, and so we went round to the place whence the arrows had come. A score of men from the gate were already clustered there on the earthworks, talking fast as Welshmen will, but heedful to challenge us as we came. I saw that they had somewhat on the ground in the midst of them.
"Here is a strange affair, my Prince," one of them said, as he held out his hand to help Owen up the earthworks.
The group stood aside for us to look on what they had found, and that was a man, fully armed in the Welsh way of Gerent's guards, but slain by the well-aimed blow of a strong seax that was yet left where it had been driven home above the corselet. There was a war bow and two more arrows lying at the foot of the rampart, as if they had been wrested from the hand of the archer and flung there. The men had not seen these, but I looked for them at once when I saw that there was no bow on the slain man.
"Who is this?" Owen said gravely, and without looking closely as yet.
"It is Tregoz of the Dart, whom the king seeks," one or two of the men said at once.
I had known that it must be he in my own mind before the name was spoken. There fell a silence on the rest as the name was told, and all looked at my foster father. There was plainly some fault in the watching of the rampart that had let the traitor find his way here at all.
"Which of you was it who slew him?" asked Owen.
"None of us, Lord. We cannot tell who it may have been. Even the sentry who keeps this beat is gone."
"Doubtless it was he who slew him, and is himself wounded in the fosse. Look for him straightway."
There they hunted, but the man was not to be found. Nor was it his weapon that had ended Tregoz.