The Hot Swamp by Robert Michael Ballantyne (audio ebook reader txt) 📖

ground. Bladud, at once dismissing all other subjects from his mind, examined him carefully, while Brownie snuffed at him with sympathetic interest.

"He lives, and no bones are broken," said the prince, looking up after a few minutes; "here, some of you, go fetch hot water and pour it on him; then rub him dry; cover him up and let him rest. He has only been stunned. And let us have something to eat, Arkal. We are ravenous as wolves, having had scarce a bite since morning."

"You come in good time," replied the captain. "Our evening meal is just ready."

"Come along, then, let us to work. You will join us, Beniah, and tell me the object of your mission while we eat."

The men of old may not have been epicures, but there can be no question that they were tremendous eaters. No doubt, living as they did, constantly in fresh air, having no house drains or gas, and being blessed with superabundant exercise, their appetites were keen and their capacities great. For at least ten minutes after the evening meal began, Bladud, Arkal, Dromas, little Maikar, and the Hebrew, were as dumb and as busy as Brownie. They spake not a single word--except that once the prince took a turkey drumstick from between his teeth to look up and repeat, "All well at home, you say?" To which Beniah, checking the course of a great wooden spoon to his lips, replied, "All well."

There was roast venison at that feast, and roast turkey and roast hare, and plover and ducks of various kinds, all roasted, and nothing whatever boiled, except some sorts of green vegetables, the names of which have, unfortunately, not been handed down to us, though we have the strongest ground for believing that they were boiled in earthenware pots--for, in recent excavations in Bath, vessels of that description have been found among the traces of the most ancient civilisation.

"Now," said the prince, wiping his mouth with a bunch of grass when he came to the first pause, "what may be the nature of your mission, Beniah?"

"Let me ask, first," replied the Hebrew, also wiping his mouth with a similar pocket handkerchief, "have you found the lad Cormac yet?"

"No," answered the prince, gloomily, and with a slightly surprised look, for the expression of Beniah's countenance puzzled him. "Why do you ask?"

"Because that bears somewhat on my mission. I have to deliver a message from your father, the king. He bids me say that you are to return home immediately."

"Never!" cried Bladud, with that Medo-Persic decision of tone and manner, which implies highly probable and early surrender, "never! until I find the boy--dead or alive."

"For," continued the Hebrew, slowly, "he has important matters to consider with you--matters that will not brook delay. Moreover, Gadarn bid me say that he has fallen on the tracks of the lad Cormac, and that we are almost sure to find him in the neighbourhood of your father's town."

"What say you?" exclaimed Bladud, dropping his drumstick--not the same one, but another which he had just begun--"repeat that."

Beniah repeated it.

"Arkal," said the prince, turning to the captain, "I will leave you in charge here, and start off by the first light to-morrow morning. See that poor Konar is well cared for. Maikar, you will accompany me, and I suppose, Dromas, that you also will go."

"Of course," said Dromas, with a meaning smile--so full of meaning, indeed, as to be quite beyond interpretation.

"By the way," continued Bladud,--who had resumed the drumstick,--"has that fellow Gadarn found his daughter Branwen?"

Beniah choked on a bone, or something, at that moment, and, looking at the prince with the strangest expression of face, and tears in his eyes, explained that he had not--at least not to his, Beniah's, absolutely certain knowledge.

"That is to say," he continued in some confusion, "if--if--he has found her--which seems to me highly probable--there must be some--some mystery about her, for--it is impossible that--"

Here the Hebrew choked again with some violence.

"Have a care, man!" cried the prince in some alarm. "However hungry a man may be, he should take time to swallow. You seem to be contradicting yourself, but I don't wonder, in the circumstances."

"Verily, I wonder at nothing, in the circumstances, for they are perplexing--even distressing," returned the Hebrew with a sigh, as he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his coat.

"Better not speak with your mouth full, then. Ah! poor Gadarn," said Bladud, in an obviously indifferent tone of voice. "I'm sorry for him. Girls like his daughter, who are self-willed, and given to running away, are a heavy affliction to parents. And, truly, I ought to feel sympathy with him, for, although I am seeking for a youth of very different character, we are both so far engaged in similar work--search for the lost. And what of my father, mother, and sister?"

"All hale and hearty!" replied Beniah, with a sigh of relief, "and all anxious for your return, especially Hafrydda."

At this point Dromas looked at the speaker with deepened interest.

"She is a good girl, your sister," continued Beniah, "and greatly taken up just now with that old woman you met in my cave. Hafrydda has strange fancies."

"She might have worse fancies than being taken up with poor old women," returned the prince. "I'm rather fond of them myself, and was particularly attracted by the old woman referred to. She was--what! choking again, Beniah? Come, I think you have had enough for one meal. And so have we all, friends, therefore we had better away to roost if we are to be up betimes in the morning."


CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.


BLADUD'S RETURN AND TRIALS.

We need scarcely say that there was joy at the court of King Hudibras when Bladud returned home, cured of his terrible disease.

The first person whom the prince hurried off to visit, after seeing his father, and embracing his mother and sister, was the northern chief Gadarn. That jovial character was enjoying a siesta after the mid-day meal at the time, but willingly arose on the prince being announced.

"Glad to see you, Gadarn," said Bladud, entering the room that had been apportioned to the chief, and sitting down on a bench for visitors, which, according to custom, stood against the inner wall of the apartment. "I hope your head is clear and your arm strong."

"Both are as they should be," answered Gadarn, returning the salutation.

"I thank you," replied the prince, "my arm is indeed strong, but my head is not quite as clear as it might be."

"Love got anything to do with it?" asked Gadarn, with a knowing look.

"Not the love of woman, if that is what you mean."

"Truly that is what I do mean--though, of course, I admit that one's horses and dogs have also a claim on our affections. What is it that troubles you, my son?"

The affectionate conclusion of this reply, and the chief's manner, drew the prince towards him, so that he became confidential.

"The truth is, Gadarn, that I am very anxious to know what news you have of Cormac--for the fate of that poor boy hangs heavy on my mind. Indeed, I should have refused to quit the Swamp, in spite of the king's commands and my mother's entreaties, if you had not sent that message by the Hebrew."

"Ah, Bladud, my young friend, that is an undutiful speech for a son to make about his parents," said the chief, holding up a remonstrative forefinger. "If that is the way you treat your natural parents, how can I expect that--that--I mean--"

Here the chief was seized with a fit of sneezing, so violent, that it made the prince quite concerned about the safety of his nose.

"Ha!" exclaimed Gadarn, as a final wind up to the last sneeze, "the air of that Swamp seems to have been too strong for me. I'm growing old, you see. Well--what was I saying?--never mind. You were referring to that poor lad Cormac. Yes, I have news of him."

"Good news, I hope?" said the prince, anxiously. "O yes--very good-- excellent! That is to say--rather--somewhat indefinite news, for--for the person who saw him told me--in fact, it is difficult to explain, because people are often untrustworthy, and exaggerate reports, so that it is not easy to make out what is true and what is false, or whether both accounts may be true, or the whole thing false altogether. You see, Bladud, our poor brains," continued the chief, in an argumentative tone, "are so--so--queerly mixed up that one cannot tell--tell--why, there was once a fellow in my army, whose manner of reporting any event, no matter how simple, was so incomprehensible that it was impossible to--to--but let me tell you an anecdote about him. His name was--"

"Forgive my interrupting you, chief, but I am so anxious to hear something about my lost friend that--"

"Ha! Bladud, I fear that you are a selfish man, for you have not yet asked about my lost daughter."

"Indeed I am not by any means indifferent about her; but--but, you know, I have never seen her, and, to tell the plain truth, my anxiety about the boy drove her out of my mind for the moment. Have you found her?"

"Ay, that I have; as well and hearty as ever she was, though somewhat more beautiful and a trifle more mischievous. But I will introduce her to you to-morrow. There is to be a grand feast, is there not, at the palace?"

"Yes; something of the sort, I believe, in honour of my return," answered the prince, a good deal annoyed by the turn the conversation had taken.

"Well, then, you shall see her then; for she has only just arrived, and is too tired to see any one," continued Gadarn, with a suppressed yawn; "and you'll be sure to fall in love with her; but you had better not, for her affections are already engaged. I give you fair warning, so be on your guard."

The prince laughed, and assured his friend that there was no fear, as he had seen thousands of fair girls both in East and West, but his heart had never yet been touched by one of them.

At this the chief laughed loudly, and assured Bladud that his case had now reached a critical stage: for when young men made statements of that kind, they were always on the point of being conquered.

"But leave me now, Bladud," he continued, with a yawn so vast that the regions around the uvula were clearly visible; "I'm frightfully sleepy, and you know you have shortened my nap this afternoon."

The prince rose at once.

"At all events," he said, "I am to understand, before I go, that Cormac _has_ been seen?"

"O yes! Certainly; no doubt about that!"

"And is well?"

"Quite well."

Fain to be content with this in the meantime, Bladud hurried to the apartment of his sister.

"Hafrydda!" he exclaimed, "has Gadarn gone out of his mind?"

"I believe not," she replied, sitting down beside her brother and taking his hand. "Why do you ask?"

"Because he talks--I say it with all respect--like an idiot."