Presently Jefan and his brother came back after posting their men, and then for half an hour I sat with Sighard and Hilda in the hut. The thane had indeed had a narrow escape from the burning hall, and had been left for dead by his pursuers. However, he had been but stunned by the blow which felled him from his horse, and presently recovering, had managed to get across the river and to some Welshman's hut, whence Jefan took him. As for those who had burnt the hall, he was sure that they were led by Gymbert, and that they were no housecarls of Offa's. They had slain Witred and another of the Mercian thanes who had fled with him. Then I asked him of himself and of his hurt. "I am old to have the senses knocked out of me, and a blow that you might think little of is enough to keep me quiet for a time. However, that is all. Now that Hilda and you are safe, and the king is found and honoured, I have naught to do but to get well. Trouble not for me." It seemed to me that there was no need for me to trouble about aught either, and out in the open air, by one of the fires, I slept till the dawn woke me, without so much as stirring. CHAPTER XVIII. HOW JEFAN THE PRINCE GUARDED HIS GUESTS. In the stir which comes with the waking of a camp, I and Erling went out of the eastward gate and watched the sun coming up over the Mercian hills across the river. The white morning mists lay deep and heavy below us, and the little breeze from the southwest drifted curls of it up the hill and across it, mixed with the smell of the newly-lighted fires; and as the sun touched the drifts they vanished. In the cattle enclosures the beasts moved restless and ghostlike, lowing for their home meadows after the night on the open hillside. Jefan had ridden out to go round his posts, and I was waiting to bid Hilda good morrow before breakfast. "What shall you do next?" asked Erling, with his eyes on the misty treetops below us. He was silent beyond his wont this morning, and I did not wonder at it. "I can hardly say. I have thought that by-and-by, when Sighard is fit to move hence, we might get to one of the Welsh ports, and so cross into my own land, Wessex, unknown to any in all Mercia." Erling nodded. "That is good," he said. "I only wish we were a trifle farther from the Wye now, or that we had a few more men." "You think that Gymbert is still to be feared?" "T know it. Unless we get hence shortly we shall be fallen on. The reeve told me that he could gather five-score men of the worst sort in a day by the raising of his finger." "It would need men of the best to take this place." "Outlaws and suchlike I meant--men who will have Gymbert's promise of inlawing again if they will do his bidding. See, here comes Jefan!"