gave me, for I feared the blinding snow that would be here soon,
and I felt that the sea was rising. If my foes were after me they
would have been seen before now, as they came to the edge of the
cliffs to spy me out, and anyway I dreaded them less than the
growing cold. Moreover, I thought that Evan would hardly get many
men to follow him on a chase of what he had told them was a madman,
and a dangerous one at that. He had his goods to see to also.

So I ran the boat into the black mouth of the gorge, and beached
her well by good chance. I had little time to lose, but I tied her
painter to a rock at the highest fringe of tide wrack, in hopes
that she might be safe. It was so dark here that I did not think
that Evan would see her from above. And then I began to climb up
the rugged path that led out of the gorge to the hilltops.

There were bones everywhere in it. Bones and skulls of droves of
cattle on all the strand above the tide mark for many score yards.
Their ribs stuck out from the snow everywhere, and the sightless
eye sockets grinned at me as I stumbled over them. But I had no
time to wonder how they came there, for I must get to the summit
before Evan and his men reached it by their way along the cliff. I
ate handfuls of the snow and quenched my thirst that was growing on
me again, and my strength began to come back to me as I hurried
upward. I was a better man when at last I reached the top of the
gorge than when I came ashore.



CHAPTER VII. HOW OSWALD CROSSED THE DYFED CLIFFS, AND MET WITH FRIENDS.