“You will therefore start for the Hot Swamp to-morrow, Beniah,” he finally remarked, “and let Bladud know that the king desires his return to court immediately. I have been told by the king to send him this message. But keep your own counsel, Hebrew, and be careful not to let the prince know what you know, else it will go ill with you! Tell him, from myself, that I have at last fallen on the tracks of the lad Cormac, and that we are almost sure to find him in this neighbourhood. Away, and let not thy feet take root on the road.”
Chapter Thirty Two.
Branwen Visits Gunrig.
Before going off on his mission the Hebrew paid a visit to his own residence, where he found Branwen busy with culinary operations. Sitting down on a stool, he looked at her with an expression of mingled amusement and perplexity.
“Come hither, my girl,” he said, “and sit beside me while I reveal the straits to which you have brought me. Verily, a short time ago I had deemed it impossible for any one to thrust me so near to the verge of falsehood as you have done!”
“I, Beniah?” exclaimed the maiden, with a look of surprise on her pretty face so ineffably innocent that it was obviously hypocritical—insomuch that Beniah laughed, and Branwen was constrained to join him.
“Yes—you and your father together, for the puzzling man has commissioned me to set out for the Hot Swamp, to tell Bladud that he is urgently wanted at home. And he would not even allow me to open my lips, when I was about to broach the subject of your disguises, although he almost certainly knows all about them—”
“What! my father knows?” interrupted Branwen, with raised eyebrows.