"Guard you the priest here, and beware of him!"
Then he dashed up the water course into which Evan had already disappeared, and I heard the feet of the four on the loose stone as they climbed upward. I had almost a mind to follow them, for I thought that their way led to Owen, but I dared not leave Morfed to go elsewhere. This might only be a plan to lead us astray.
[CHAPTER XIV]. HOW OSWALD FOUND WHAT HE SOUGHT, AND RODE HOMEWARD WITH NONA THE PRINCESS.
So I was left with Morfed the priest, and he did not offer to follow his men, but stood and faced me with eyes that gleamed with the fire of wrath or madness, or both. We waited, both of us, as I think, to hear if any sound beyond the lessening footfalls came from the water course, but they died away upward, and there was still no word between us. Then I thought that I would try one more plan with him.
"Morfed," I said, "take me to Owen, and I will pledge my word that Gerent shall seek no revenge for what has been done by you."
"What I have done!" he broke out. "I sought to rid the land of a foe, and that was a deed worth doing. Know you what you have done?--Through you is ended the tale of many a thousand years. The time is past when I, the priest and Archdruid of this poor land, should have done what has been done, since time untold, without fail, against tomorrow's rites. That day, therefore, through you shall be unobserved. It is strange that a mere Saxon warrior, with no thought beyond his feasting and fighting, should set his will against mine and prove the stronger. Now I wit well that this is some fated day, and that herein lies some omen of what shall be."
Then he turned a little from me, and looked at the shadow which had passed altogether from the altar stone now, and half to himself he said:
"I had thought that this menhir had fallen when this came to pass. But maybe the old prophecy meant that not until it fell we must cease our rites. But that was not how we read the words of old time. If we read them wrong, what else have we mistaken?"
"Morfed," I broke in on his musings, "end this idle talk, and tell me of Owen. Then I will go hence and leave you to work what you will here. I had no wish to disturb your rites, whatsoever they were. If aught has happened amiss, it was your own fault, not mine. Your own deed brought me here."
But he paid not the least heed to me, and yet I thought that he tried to put me off, as it were, by seeming wrapt in thoughts.