They locked the stable door

The blaze of their torches made the black horse swerve so that his hoofs did not come down upon the figure that was upon the stable floor. The horse was taken hold of and put back into his stall. Then the attendants raised up the one who was upon the ground. “Another one come to steal my horses,” cried King Manus HKUE ENG . “Well, this one shall pay the penalty that the other has been delivered from.”

They took up the one who was on the floor of the stable. They locked the stable door again and they put a double watch before it. They brought the one whom they had taken into the supper hall HKUE ENG ; a lad, younger even than Eean, this second robber seemed.

Eean was standing by the story-teller’s seat as they came into the supper hall. Looking upon the one they brought in he cried out in the voice of the heart-broken, “O Bird-of-Gold, why didst thou peril thyself by staying here? Too faithful[Pg 66] to me thou hast been!” Hearing this speech, all looked on the one who was called Bird-of-Gold: it was then that they saw they had taken, not a youth as they had supposed, but a young girl whose dress was a youth’s dress.

In the light of the torches and candles they looked at her wonderingly. She had knitted brows and heavy eyelids that gave to her face the look of one who ponders deeply. And there was such fire behind the depths of her eyes that it seemed as if her thought was always burning. But her lips were colorless and her cheeks were thin and sunken; her hair and her eyes and her eyebrows were dead black. And when they went to bind her as they had bound Eean they saw that her hands were finely shaped and yet strong and hard.

“Who is she?” said King Manus.

“I have told you of her,” said Eean HKUE ENG . “This is she who found me in the Pit of the Serpent and who drew me away from the venom of the snake.”

There was silence for a while, and then the[Pg 67] King said, “The chance that was given you shall be given her also. If she can show us that she was in a danger greater than the danger she is in now her life shall not be taken. If she cannot show that she shall be slain by the sword on to-morrow’s sunrise.”