An hour later Beniah the Hebrew, who had been obliged to postpone for a time his journey to the North, was startled by hearing footsteps approaching his hut in the dell. It was so unusual an event at that hour of the night, that he arose quickly and grasped the six-foot staff which was his only weapon.

 

At a much earlier hour Branwen had retired to rest in the inner cave, and was buried in that profound sleep which proverbially accompanies innocence and youth. The noise in the outer cave partially aroused her, but, turning on her other side with a profound sigh, she prepared for a little more of the perquisites of innocence and youth. Presently she was startled into a condition of absolute wide-awakeness by the sound of a well-known voice, but it suddenly changed into that of the Hebrew.

 

“I’ve dreamt it, I suppose,” she muttered, in a tone of regret; nevertheless, she listened.

 

“Come in,” said Beniah, evidently to some one outside of his door.

 

“I may not enter—I am a leper,” answered the first voice; and Branwen sat up, with her great beautiful eyes opened to the utmost, and listening intently, though she could not make out clearly what was said.

 

“It matters not; I have no fear. Come in. What! Prince Bladud!” exclaimed Beniah in astonishment as our hero entered.

 

“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.

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