“As I am now cured, good Konar,” said Bladud to the hunter, while returning to the booth, “and as I have enough to do in searching for my lost friend, I fear that I must end my service with you, and make over the pigs to some other herd.”
“As you please, prince,” returned the eccentric hunter with the utmost coolness, “the pigs were well able to look after themselves before you came, and, doubtless, they will be not less able after you go.”
Bladud laughed, and, putting his hand kindly on the man’s shoulder, assured him that he would find for him a good successor to herd his pigs. He also asked him if he would agree to act as hunter to his party, as he intended to remain in that region and build a small town beside the springs, so that people afflicted with the disease from which he had suffered, or any similar disease, might come and be cured.
Konar agreed at once, for a new light burst upon him, and the idea of living to serve other people, and not merely to feed himself, seemed to put new life into him.
“Do you really mean to build a town here?” asked Dromas, when he heard his friend giving orders to his men to erect a large booth to shelter them all for some time to come.
“Indeed, I do. So thankful am I, Dromas, for this cure, that I feel impelled to induce others to come and share the blessing. I only wish I could hope that you would stay in Albion and aid me. But I suppose there is some fair one in Hellas who might object to that.”
“No fair one that I know of,” returned Dromas, with a laugh, “and as I have left neither kith nor kin at home, there is nothing to prevent my taking the proposal into consideration.”
“That is good news indeed. So, then, I will ask you to come along with me just now, and mayhap you will make up your mind while we walk. I go to fix on a site for the new town, and to set the men to work.”
That day the voices of toilers, and the sound of hatchets and the crash of falling trees, were heard in the neighbourhood of the Hot Swamp, while the prince and his friend examined the localities around in the immediate vicinity of the fountain-head.
On coming to the fountain itself, the young men paused to look at it, as it welled up from the earth. So hot was it that they could not endure to hold their hands in it, and in such volumes did it rise, that it overflowed its large natural basin continually, and converted a large tract of ground into a morass, while finding its way, by many rills and channels, into the adjacent river.