"Now," said I, "I had a mind to leave you bound here for the wolves, but you shall take a message to your master."
On that the man swore to do my bidding, or, if I would, to follow me.
"Save your oaths," I said. "I have heard a many today, and I hold them as nothing. Take these cast rags of mine, and bear them back to your master. Give them to him, and then say to him whatsoever you will -- either that you have slain me and these are the tokens, but that Gurth was by me slain, and you must leave him and his arms here because of the wolves which you feared; or else you can tell him the truth, as it has happened, and see what he does to you. I mind how he hung up a thrall of his by the thumbs once for two days. He will surely take good care of one of two who were beaten by an unarmed man. But I think the lie will come easiest to your master's man."
Thus spoke I bitterly, and cut the belt which bound the man's arms, thinking all the while that he would never go back at all if he were wise. But he said he would go back and tell the lie, and I laughed at him.
It was dusk now, and though I feared not the man, I would play with him yet a little longer in my bitterness. So I bade him keep still, and stir not till I gave him leave. His feet were yet bound, and he would need an edge-tool to loose that binding. Telling him, then, that I would not run the chance of his falling on me from behind, I took his dagger and the seax they had given me, and stuck them in the ground a full hundred yards away, and then bade him, when I was out of sight, crawl thither as best he might and so loose himself.
The poor wretch was too glad to be spared to do aught but repeat that he would do my errand faithfully, and thank me; and, but for the sort of madness that was still on me, I must have been ashamed to torture him so. I am sorry now as I think of it, and many a man who has well deserved punishment have I let go since that day, fearing lest that old cruelty should be on me again, perhaps.
Then I turned and walked away, and even as I passed the weapons, I heard the low howl of a wolf from the swamp to my right. Far off it was, but at that sound the man cast himself on hands and knees and began to crawl in all haste to free himself.
Then I laughed again, and plunging deeper into the wood, lost sight of him.
[CHAPTER III.] BY BELL, BOOK, AND CANDLE.
I had never been into Sedgemoor before, and so went straight on as I could, only turning aside from swampy places while the light lasted. Then I must wait for the moon to rise, and I sat me down under an old thorn tree on a little rise where I could see about me. I had come out of the woods, and all the moor was open to the west and south so far as I could see. I knew that the place was haunted of evil spirits, and shunned at night time by all: but now I was not afraid of them -- or indeed of anything, save the wolves. The terror of the man I had left had put that fear into my head, or I think that, desperate as I was, only the sound of a pack of them in full cry would have warned me. Still, I had heard no more since that one howled an hour ago.