"Some old dame has taken the broomstick to them," said Kolgrim. "They are hungry, and have put their noses into her milk pails."
"It is too late for open doors," I said; "unless they have found our own lodging, where some are waiting for us. But there they would not be beaten."
"Ho!" said Kolgrim, in another minute or so, "yonder is a fire."
The wind had come round the hillside and swept the mist away for a moment, and below us in the valley was a speck of red light that made a wide glow in the denser fog that hung there. One could hardly say how far off it was, for fog of any sort confuses distance; but the brook seemed to run in the direction of the fire, and it was likely that any house stood near its banks.
"Let us follow the brook and see what we can find," I said therefore. "These mists are chill, and I will confess that I am hungry. We cannot lose our way if we keep to the water, and the horses will be safe enough."
Anything was better, as it seemed to us, than trying to think that we slept comfortably here, and so we rose up and went down the banks of the stream at once; and the way proved to be easy enough, if rocky. The bank on this side was higher, and dry therefore, so that we had no bogs to fear. We knew enough of them in the Orkneys and on the Sutherland coast.
The white mist grew very thick, but the firelight glow grew redder as we went on, and at last we came near enough to hear many voices plainly; but presently, when one shouted, we found that the tongue was not known to us.
"Now it is plain whom we have come across," I said. "This is a camp of the Cornish tin traders, of whom the king told us. They are honest folk enough, and will put us on the great road. They must be close to it."
That seemed so likely that we left the brook and began to draw nearer to the fire, the voices growing plainer every moment, though we could see no man as yet.
Now, all of a sudden, every voice was silent, and we stopped, thinking we were heard perhaps; though it did seem strange to me that no dogs were about a camp of traders. I was just about to call out that we were friends, when there began a low, even beating, as of a drum of some sort, and then suddenly a wild howl that sounded like a war cry of maddened men, and after that a measured tramping of feet that went swiftly and in time to a chant, the like of which I had never heard before, and which made me grasp Harek by the arm.