The days spent on the mountain had not been as cheerless as that first night. The fire burned now continually on the hearth, the light peat smoke was dissipated at once by the wind, which was never still at the fall of the year at the altitude where was planted the hovel of the hermit.

The supply of food was better than at first. One night Pabo had found a she-goat attached to a bush near the stone of Cynwyl; and he had taken her to his habitation, where she supplied him with milk. On another night he had found on a rock a rolled-up blanket, and had experienced the comfort at night of this additional covering.

But no tidings whatever had reached him of what went on in Caio. This was satisfactory, and his anxiety for his flock abated. But he knew that the enemy was quartered in the valley, because no call had come to him to return to it. At nights he would steal along the mountain-top that he might, from Bronffin, look down on the sleeping valley, with its scattered farms and hamlets; and on Sunday morning he even ventured within hearing of the church bell, that he might in spirit unite with his flock in prayer. He concluded that one of the assistant priests from a chapelry under the great Church was ministering there in his stead. He knew that his people would be thinking of him, as he was of them.

During the day he made long excursions to the north, among the wild wastes that stretched interminably away before his eyes, and offered him a region where he might lie hid should his present hiding-place be discovered.

None could approach the hut unobserved, a long stretch of moor was commanded by it, and the rocks in the rear afforded means, should he observe an enemy approach, of getting away beyond their reach into the intricacies of the wilderness.

At first Pabo was oppressed by the sense of loneliness. No human face was seen, no human voice heard. But this passed, and he became conscious of a calm coming over his troubled heart, and with it a sense of freedom from care and childlike happiness.

The elevation at which he lived, the elasticity of the air, the brilliance of the light, unobstructed, as below, by mountains, tended towards this. Moreover, he was alone with Nature, that has an inspiriting effect on the heart, whilst at the same time tranquilizing the nerves—tranquilizing all the cares and worries bred of life among men. It was a delight to Pabo to wander through the heather to some brow that overhung the Ystrad Towy or the valley of the Cothi, and look down from his treeless altitude on the rolling masses of wood, now undergoing glorious change of color under the touch of autumn. Or else to venture into the higher, unoccupied mountain glens, where the rowan and the rose-bramble were scarlet with their berries, and there he seemed to be moving in the land of coral.

It was a delight to observe the last flowers of the year, the few stray harebells that still hung and swayed in the air, the little ivy-leafed campanula by the water, the sturdy red robin, the gorse persistent in bloom. He gathered a few blossoms to adorn his wretched hovel, and in it they were as a smile.

The birds were passing overhead, migrating south, yet the ring-ouzel was still there; the eagle and hawk spired aloft on their lookout for prey; the plover and curlew piped mournfully, and the owl hooted.

The insects were retiring underground for the winter. Pabo had not hitherto noticed the phases of life around him, below that of man, now it broke on him as a wonder, and filled him with interest, to see a world on which hitherto he had not thought to direct his observation. There is no season in the year in which the lights are more varied and more beautiful than in autumn, the slant rays painting the rocks vermilion, glorifying the dying foliage, enhancing the color of every surviving flower.

But the fall of the year is one in which Nature weeps and sighs over the prospect of death; and there came on Pabo days of blinding fog and streaming rain. Then he was condemned to remain within, occasionally looking forth into the whirls of drifting vapor, charged with a strange dank scent, or at the lines of descending water. He milked his goat, collected food for it, and heaped up his fire.

Then it was that sad thoughts came over him, forebodings of ill; and he mused by his hearth, looking into the glow, listening to the moan of the wind or the drizzle of the rain, and the eternal drip, drip from the eaves.

He had thus sat for hours one day, interrupting his meditations only by an occasional pace to the door to look out for a break in the weather, when there came upon him with a shock of surprise the recollection that there was more in the hermit's scroll than he had considered at first. Not much. He unfurled it, and beside the bequest of the hut, only these words were added: "For a commission look below my bed."

What was the meaning of this? It was strange that till now Pabo had given no thought to these concluding words.

Now he thrust the fire together, cast on some dry bunches of gorse that lit the interior with a golden light, and he drew the bed from the place it had occupied in the corner of the chamber.

Beneath it was nothing but the beaten earth that had never been disturbed.

The bed itself was but a plank resting on two short rollers, to sustain it six inches above the soil. Nothing had been concealed beneath the plank, between it and the ground—no box, no roll of parchment. Nothing even was written in the dust.

Pabo took a flaming branch and examined the place minutely, but in vain.

Then he threw off the blanket and skins that covered the pallet. He shook them, and naught dropped out. He took the pillow and explored it. The contents were but moss; yet he picked the moss to small pieces, searching for the commission and finding none. Then he drew away the logs on which the plank had rested. They might be hollow and contain something. Also in vain. Thoroughly perplexed to know what could have been the hermit's meaning, Pabo now replaced the rollers in their former position and raised the plank to lean it upon them once more.

At this something caught his eye—some scratches on the lower surface of the board. He at once turned it over, and to his amazement saw that this under side of the pallet was scored over with lines and with words, drawn on the wood with a heated skewer, so that they were burnt in.

The fire had sunk to a glow—he threw on more gorse. As it blazed he saw that the lines were continuous and had some meaning, though winding about. Apparently a plan had been sketched on the board. Beneath were these words, burnt in—

Thesaurus, a Romanis antiquis absconditus in antro Ogofau.

Then followed in Welsh some verses—

The lines that twisted, then ran straight, then bent were, apparently, a plan.

Pabo studied it. At one point, whence the line started, he read, "Ingressio"; then a long stroke, and Perge; further a turn, and here was written vertitur in sinistram. There was a fork there, in fact the line forked in several places, and the plan seemed to be intricate. Then a black spot was burnt deeply into the wood, and here was written: Cave, puteum profundum. And just beyond this several dots with the burning skewer, and the inscription, Auri moles prÆgrandis.

Pabo was hardly able at first to realize the revelation made. He knew the Ogofau well. It was hard by Pumpsaint—a height, hardly a mountain, that had been scooped out like a volcanic crater by the Romans during their occupation of Britain. From the crater thus formed, they had driven adits into the bowels of the mountain. Thence it was reported they had extracted much gold. But the mine had been unworked since their time. The Welsh had not sufficient energy or genius in mining to carry on the search after the most precious of ores. And superstition had invested the deserted works with terrors. Thither it was said that the Five Saints, the sons of Cynyr of the family of Cunedda, had retired in a thunder-storm for shelter. They had penetrated into the mine and had lost their way, and taking a stone for a bolster, had laid their heads on it and fallen asleep. And there they would remain in peaceful slumber till the return of King Arthur, or till a truly apostolic prelate should occupy the throne of St. David. An inquisitive woman, named Gwen, led by the devil, sought to spy on the saintly brothers in their long sleep, but was punished by also losing her way in the passages of the mine; and there she also remained in an undying condition, but was suffered to emerge in storm and rain, when her vaporous form—so it was reported—might be seen sailing about the old gold-mine, and her sobs and moans were borne far off on the wind.

In consequence, few dared in broad daylight to visit the Ogofau, none ever ventured to penetrate the still open mouth of the mine.

Pabo was not devoid of superstition, yet not abjectly credulous. If what he now saw was the result of research by the hermit, then it was clear that where one man had gone another might also go, and with the assistance of the plan discover the hidden treasure which the Romans had stored, but never removed.

And yet, as Pabo gazed at the plan and writing, he asked, was it not more likely that the old hermit had been a prey to hallucinations, and that there was no substance behind this parade of a secret? Was it not probable that in the thirty years' dreaming in this solitude his fancies had become to him realities; that musing in the long winter nights on the woes of his country he had come on the thought, what an assistance it would be to it had the Romans not extricated all the ore from the rich veins of the Ogofau. Then, going a little further, had imagined that in their hasty withdrawal from Britain, they might not have removed all the gold found. Advancing mentally, he might have supposed that the store still remaining underground might be recovered, and then the entire fabric of plan, with its directions, would have been the final stage in this fantastic progress.

How could the recluse have penetrated the passages of the mine?

It was true enough that the Ogofau were accessible from Mallaen without going near any habitation of man. It was conceivable that by night the old man had prosecuted his researches, which had finally been crowned with success.

Pabo felt a strong desire to consult Howel. He started up, and after having replaced the plank and covered it with the bedding, left the hut and made his way down into the valley of the Annell, to the Stone of Cynwyl.

Notwithstanding the drizzle and the gathering night, he pushed on down the steep declivity, and on reaching the brawling stream passed out of the envelope of vapor.

The night was not pitch dark, there was a moon above the clouds, and a wan, gray haze pervaded the valley.

As he reached the great erratic block he saw what at first he thought was a dark bush, or perhaps a black sheep against it.

All at once, at the sound of his step on the rocks, the figure moved, rose, and he saw before him a woman with extended arms.

"Pabo!" she said in thrilling tones. "Here they are—the two pebbles!"

"Morwen!"

He sprang towards her, with a rush of blood from his heart.

She made no movement to meet his embrace.

"Oh, Pabo! hear all first, and then decide if I am to lose you forever."

In tremulous tones, but with a firm heart, she narrated to him all that had taken place. This was now Sunday. Two men had been hung. On the morrow Howel would be suspended beside them. These executions would continue till the place of retreat of the Archpriest was revealed, and he had been taken.

She did not repeat to him the words of Angarad, Madoc's wife—now widow.

"Pabo!" she said, and tears were oozing between every word she uttered, "It is I—I who bring you this tidings! I—I who offer you these two pebbles! I—I who send you to your death!"

"Aye, my Morwen," he said, and clasped her to his heart, "it is because you love me that you do this. It is right. I return to Caio with you."