And having secured the youth they went into the stable, and they found the red horse and the black horse eating at their mangers. They led the white horse back and put him in his own stall. The watchers who had been before the stable door could not be wakened, so those who were with the King carried them to another place, and left two others, the harper and the story-teller, to keep watch, with the soldiers’ swords in their hands. As for the youth who had tried to steal the white horse, he was placed as has been told you, and every one there knew what doom would befall him.
It was then that the King called upon one to finish the story that was being told him when the white horse neighed. It was then that he sat at the supper board, not able to take rest nor refreshment on account of his not having heard the story to its end. And it was then that one of the lords said to the King, “Let the youth who is lying bound beside the trestles of the table tell us what it was that made him go into such danger to steal one of the horses of King Manus.”
The King liked that saying, and he said, “Since my story-teller abides outside guarding the door of the stable, I will have this youth tell us the story of why he entered into such danger to steal one of my horses. And more than that. I declare that if he shows us that he was ever in greater danger than he is in this night I shall give him his life. But if it is not so shown the story he tells will avail him nothing, and he shall perish by the sword at the morrow’s sunrise.”
Then the youth was taken from where he lay by the trestles of the table, and the cords that bound him were loosened. He was put in the story-teller’s place and fresh candles were lighted and set upon the table.
“Your danger is great,” said the King, “and it will be hard for you to show us that you were ever in such danger before. Begin your story. And if it is not a story of a narrow and a close escape there will be little time left for you to prepare for your death by the sword.”
Thereupon the youth in the foreign dress looked long into the wine cup that was handed him, and he drank a draught of the wine, and he saluted the King and the lords who sat by the King, and he said:
“Once I was in greater danger, for its mouth was close to me, and no hope whatever was given me of my saving my life. I will tell the story, and you shall judge whether my danger then was greater than is my danger now.”
And thereupon the youth in the foreign dress, who had tried to steal the white horse that King Manus owned, began the story which is set down here in the very words in which he told it.