Addedomar frowned and looked at the ground for some moments in meditation.
“I’m convinced,” he said at last, “that this lad is none other than the girl who escaped in the hunting dress of my young brother, just the day before I returned to camp. Mother was not as careful as she might have been at that time, and lost me a pretty wife. Good! Things are turning out well to-day. We will rout Gadarn, find his daughter and this so-called lad, and then I shall have two wives instead of one.”
The robber chief had just come to this satisfactory conclusion, when another scout arrived.
“How now, varlet? Do you bring good news?”
“That depends on what you consider good,” answered the scout, panting. “I have just learned that a large body of King Hudibras’ men—about two hundred, I believe—is on its way to the Swamp to search for his son Bladud—”
“What! the giant whom we have heard tell of—who gave Gunrig such a drubbing?”
“The same. It seems that he has been smitten with leprosy, has been banished from court, and has taken up his abode somewhere near the Swamp.”
“But if he has been banished, why do they send out to search for him, I wonder?” said the robber chief.
“It is said,” returned the scout, “that a friend of Bladud from the far East wants to find him.”
“Good! This is rare good luck. We, too, will search for Bladud and slay him. It is not every day that a man has the chance to kill a giant with leprosy, and a king’s son into the bargain.”