“I will try, lady,” he said. “If I fail, you will know it was not for want of trying. But the country of your kindred is, and ought to be, as a den of lions for any of our band.”
“I know!” she said. “But I know you would like to have something hard and dangerous to do for us.”
“You know the truth,” said Dewi, with quivering lips. “And if I can, I will come back and hunt you out again, and bring news of your own to you.”
“We shall be lonelier and more friendless than ever when you are gone,” Ethne said.
“They do not want me any further,” Dewi said. “Just now I heard them say they have other Irish captives in other vessels further south, who are to be joined to-morrow. And they have hired new sailors who know this coast. For it is a perilous coast, beset by rocks and shoals and narrow channels between islands full, they say, of savage people.”
“Where are they taking us?” Baithene asked.
“To Gaul, I believe. There are men of our race there who speak our language.”
“And then?”
“To Rome, they say. To the great Court of the Empire and mart of the world. They have a good cargo: gold ornaments of great price among the Irish plunder, copper and tin from the ancient mines in this west country, and a goodly troop of captives.”