On entering and beholding a beautiful girl kneeling, and in tears, where she had left a feeble old woman, she almost fell down with superstitious fear, deeming that an angel had been sent to comfort her son—and so indeed one had been sent, in a sense, though not such an one as superstition suggested.
A few minutes’ talk with Gunrig, however, cleared up the mystery. But the unwonted excitement and exertion had caused the sands of life to run more rapidly than might otherwise have been the case. The chief’s voice became suddenly much more feeble, and frequently he gasped for breath.
“Mother,” he said, “Branwen wants to get home without any one knowing that she has been here. You will send our stoutest man with her to-night, to guard her through the woods as far as the Hebrew’s cave. Let him not talk to her by the way, and bid him do whatever she commands.”
“Yes, my dear, dear son, what else can I do to comfort you?”
“Come and sit beside me, mother, and let me lay my head on your knee. You were the first to comfort me in this life, and I want you to be the last. Speak with Branwen, mother, after I am gone. She will comfort you as no one else can. Give me your hand, mother; I would sleep now as in the days gone by.”
The bronzed warrior laid his shaggy head on the lap where he had been so often fondled when he was a little child, and gently fell into that slumber from which he never more awoke.