"Master, they say that you seek the lost valley, of which none will speak."
"That seems true; but speak up, and mouth not your words so."
"Here was I born and bred, Master," said the man, still in the same growling voice. "I know where the lost valley is hidden, though none may go there save at peril of life. It is unlucky so much as to speak thereof."
"Can you take me within sight of its place, so that I can find it?" I asked, with a wild hope at last springing up in me.
"I can; and, Master, unluckier than I am I cannot be, so that life is little to me. Into that place I will even go for you, and risk what may befall me, if only you will find pardon for me. Only, I do not know if you will find aught of Owen the prince there."
"You must be in a bad way, my poor churl," said I, "if things are thus with you. But if you will help me to that place, and there let me find what I may, there is naught that may not be forgiven you. Even were it murder, I will pay the weregild for you, and you shall have cause to say that the place has no ill luck for you."
"Thane," said the man, in a new voice that was strangely familiar to me, "you have spoken, and forgiven I shall surely be."
Then he rose from behind the rock and came to my side, and took my hand and kissed it again and again, and surely I had seen his form before.
"Thane, I am Evan the outlaw, and my life is yours because you forgave me a little once, and saved me from the wolves, giving that life back to me when I knew it well nigh gone."
I looked at the pale hair and beard of the man, and wondered. Evan's had been black as night.