"Harold, thy Count, man--and I trust he is here."

"Not so, but not far distant--at a place by the mouth of the river
called Caer Gyffin [158]. Thou shalt take boat, and be there ere the
sunset."

"Is a battle at hand? Yon churl disappointed and tricked me; he
promised me danger, and not a soul have we met."

"Harold's besom sweeps clean," answered Godrith, smiling. "But thou
art like, perhaps, to be in at the death. We have driven this Welch
lion to bay at last. He is ours, or grim Famine's. Look yonder;" and
Godrith pointed to the heights of Penmaen-mawr. "Even at this
distance, you may yet descry something grey and dim against the sky."

"Deemest thou my eye so ill practised in siege, as not to see towers?
Tall and massive they are, though they seem here as airy as roasts,
and as dwarfish as landmarks."

"On that hill-top, and in those towers, is Gryffyth, the Welch king,
with the last of his force. He cannot escape us; our ships guard all
the coasts of the shore; our troops, as here, surround every pass.
Spies, night and day, keep watch. The Welch moels (or beacon-rocks)
are manned by our warders. And, were the Welch King to descend,
signals would blaze from post to post, and gird him with fire and
sword. From land to land, from hill to hill, from Hereford to
Caerleon, from Caerleon to Milford, from Milford to Snowdon, through
Snowdon to yonder fort, built, they say, by the fiends or the giants,
--through defile and through forest, over rock, through morass, we have