"He might give it to me, if I undertook to do him a great service, and to bring the place under his feet." "What service could such as you render?" "Would not that be a service to bring all Caio into subjection. See! I doubt not that a good fat prebend would be more to your liking than this lost valley among the mountains, traversed by the Sarn Helen alone, which was a road frequented once when the Romans were here, and the gold-mines were worked, and Loventum was a city. But now--it is naught. Few use it." Cadell mused on this astonishing proposal. It was quite true. He would rather far be a canon at St. David's, with nothing to do, than be stationed here in this lonely nook surrounded by enemies. Caio, however, with Llansawel and Pumpsaint, its daughter benefices, was a rich holding, and not to be sacrificed except for something better. Yet he feared the intentions of Bernard with regard to it. "You see," continued Goronwy, "that the people are so maddened at what has been done and so bitterly opposed to you that were I appointed in your room----" "But you are not a priest." "Was not Bernard pitchforked into the priesthood and episcopate in one day? Could not something of the sort be done with me?" Again Cadell was silent. Goronwy suffered him to brood over the proposal. "If you were to leave for something better they would hail me as one of themselves, and their rightful chief. And I would repay the bishop and you for doing it." Still Cadell did not speak. Then Goronwy drew nearer to him. His small eyes contracted and his thin lips became pointed as he said, "Pabo is not dead." Cadell started. "Dead! I know he is dead! I saw his body!" Goronwy broke into a mocking laugh. "I saw him--charred; and I had him buried under a dungheap outside the church garth, as befitted one struck down by the judgment of Heaven." "Pabo is not dead," repeated Goronwy jeeringly. "He is dead. It was a manifest miracle. I have told the bishop of it. It would spoil everything if, after I had announced it, he were found not to be dead." "Yes," said the young man, rubbing his large hands together, "it would spoil everything." Then, seized by a sudden terror, Cadell exclaimed, "It was threatened--the staff of Cynwyl would raise the dead. It has done it before." "Oh! the staff of Cynwyl had naught to do with it." "Merciful heavens, angels and saints protect me! If that burned lump is raised, and walks, and were to come here, and--come to me when in bed----!" In the horror of the thought, Cadell was unable to conclude the sentence. But he broke forth: "It is not so. If he be alive, he is no longer under the dungheap where he was laid. I will go see." "Go, by all means," said Goronwy, and laughed immoderately. "Tell me more. You know more." "Nay, go and see. I will tell nothing further till I have a written and sealed promise from the bishop that he will appoint me Archpriest of Caio."