Before going off on his mission the Hebrew paid a visit to his own residence, where he found Branwen busy with culinary operations. Sitting down on a stool, he looked at her with an expression of mingled amusement and perplexity.

 

“Come hither, my girl,” he said, “and sit beside me while I reveal the straits to which you have brought me. Verily, a short time ago I had deemed it impossible for any one to thrust me so near to the verge of falsehood as you have done!”

 

“I, Beniah?” exclaimed the maiden, with a look of surprise on her pretty face so ineffably innocent that it was obviously hypocritical—insomuch that Beniah laughed, and Branwen was constrained to join him.

 

“Yes—you and your father together, for the puzzling man has commissioned me to set out for the Hot Swamp, to tell Bladud that he is urgently wanted at home. And he would not even allow me to open my lips, when I was about to broach the subject of your disguises, although he almost certainly knows all about them—”

 

“What! my father knows?” interrupted Branwen, with raised eyebrows.

 

“Yes, and you know that he knows, and he knows that I know, and we all know that each other knows, and why there should be any objection that every one should know is more than I can—”

 

“Never mind, Beniah,” interrupted the girl, with the slightest possible smile. “You are a dear, good old creature, and I know you won’t betray me. Remember your solemn promise.”

 

“Truly I shall not forget it soon,” replied the Hebrew, “for the trouble it has cost me already to compose answers that should not be lies is beyond your light-hearted nature to understand.”

 

“Ah! yes, indeed,” rejoined Branwen, with a sigh of mock humility, “I was always very lighthearted by nature. The queen used frequently to tell me so—though she never said it was by ‘nature,’ and the king agreed with her—though by the way he used to laugh, I don’t think he thought light-heartedness to be very naughty. But come, Beniah, I am longing to hear what my father commissioned you to say or do.”

 

“Well, he was very particular in cautioning me not to tell what I know—”

 

“Ah! that knowledge, what a dreadful thing it is to have too much of it! Well, what more?”

 

“He told me what I have already told you, and bid me add from himself that he has fallen on the tracks of the lad Cormac, and that he is sure to be found in this neighbourhood.”

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