“Even so. But how is it that you know me?”
“I saw you once, and, once seen, you are not easily forgotten. But what mean ye about being a leper?”
“Keep at a safe distance, and I will tell you.”
Hereupon the prince began to give the old man an account of his illness; the opinion expressed by the doctor as to its nature; and the determination he had formed of forsaking home, and retiring to the solitude of some unfrequented part of the forest for the remainder of his life.
It would have been a sight worth looking at—had there been light to see it—the vision of Branwen, as she stood in the passage in partial deshabille, with her eyes wide, her lips parted, her heart beating, and a wealth of auburn hair curling down her back, listening, as it were, with every power of her soul and body. But she could not hear distinctly. Only a disconnected word reached her now and then. In a state of desperate curiosity she returned to her cave.
A few minutes later a noise was heard by the two men in the outer cave; and a little old woman in a grey shawl was seen to thrust a plank over the chasm and totter across towards them.
Poor Beniah was horrified. He did not know what to do or say. Happily he was one of those men whose feelings are never betrayed by their faces.
The old woman hobbled forward and sat down on a stool close to them. Looking up in their faces, she smiled and nodded.
In doing so she revealed the fact that, besides having contorted her face into an unrecognisable shape, she had soiled it in several places with streaks of charcoal and earth.
“Who is this?” asked Bladud in surprise. Before the old man could reply, the old woman put her hand to her ear, and, looking up in the prince’s face, shouted, in tones that were so unlike to her own natural voice that Beniah could scarce believe his ears—