"Tell him what we are going to do with him, Evan," one said to the
chief.

So Evan spoke in the worst Saxon I had ever heard, and I thought
that it fitted his face well.

"No good glaring in that wise," he said; "if you are quiet no harm
will come to you. We are going to hold you as a hostage until your
Saxon master or your British father pay ransom for you, and inlaw
us again. That last is a notion of my own, for I am by way of being
an honest man. The rest do not care for anything but the money we
shall get for you from one side or the other, or maybe from both.
By and by, when we have you in a safe place, you shall write a
letter for us to use, and I will have you speak well of me in it,
so that it shall be plain that you owe your life to me, and then I
shall be safe. That is a matter between you and me, however. None
of these knaves ken a word of Saxon."

I suppose that I showed pretty plainly what I thought of this sort
of treachery to his comrades, for one of the others laughed at me,
and said:

"Speak him fair, Evan, speak him fair, else we shall have trouble
with him."

"I am just threatening him now," the villain said in Welsh--"after
that is time to give him a chance to behave himself," and then he
went on to me in Saxon: "Now, if you will give your word to keep
quiet and go with me as a friend I will trust you, but if
not--well, we must take you as we can. How do you prefer to go?"