Further Searchings and Perplexities.  
While these events were taking place at court, the bold chief Gadarn was ranging the country far and wide in search of his daughter Branwen.
 
There was something in his manner which puzzled his followers not a little, for he seemed to have changed his character—at least to have added to it a strange, wild hilarity which suggested the idea that he enjoyed the hunt and was in no hurry that it should come to an end. Those who knew him best began at last to fear that anxiety had unsettled his reason, and Bladud, who liked the man’s gay, reckless disposition and hearty good-humour, intermingled with occasional bursts of fierce passion, was not only puzzled but distressed by the wild inconsistency of his proceedings. The Hebrew, knowing to some extent the cause of what he did, and feeling bound by his promise to conceal his knowledge, was reduced to a state of mind that is not describable.
 
On the one hand there was the mystery of Cormac’s total disappearance in a short walk of three miles. On the other hand, there was the utter uselessness of searching for Branwen, yet the urgent need of searching diligently for Cormac. Then there was the fear of consequences when the fiery Gadarn should come to find out how he had been deceived, or rather, what moderns might style humbugged; add to which he was debarred the solace of talking the subject over with Bladud, besides being, in consequence of his candid disposition, in danger of blurting out words that might necessitate a revelation. One consequence was that, for the time at least, the grave and amiable Hebrew became an abrupt, unsociable, taciturn man.
 
“What ails you just now, Beniah?” asked Bladud, one evening as they walked together to Gadarn’s booth, having been invited to supper. “You seem out of condition mentally, if not bodily, as if some one had rubbed you the wrong way.”
 
“Do I?” answered Beniah, with a frown and something between a grin and a laugh. “Well, it is not easy to understand one’s mental complaints, much less to explain them.”
 
Fortunately their arrival at the booth put a timely end to the conversation.
 
“Ha! my long-legged prince and stalwart Hebrew!” cried the jovial chief in a loud voice, “I began to fear that you had got lost—as folk seem prone to do in this region—or had forgotten all about us! Come in and sit ye down. Ho! varlet, set down the victuals. After all, you are just in the nick of time. Well, Beniah, what think you of our search to-day? Has it been close? Is it likely that we have missed any of the caves or cliffs where robbers might be hiding?”
 
“I think not. It seems to me that we have ransacked every hole and corner in which there is a chance that the lad could be found.”
 
“The lad!” exclaimed Gadarn.
 
“I—I mean—your daughter,” returned the Hebrew, quickly.
 
“Why don’t you say what you mean, then? One expects a man of your years to talk without confusion—or is it that you are really more anxious about finding the boy than my girl?”
 
“Nay, that be far from me,” answered the Hebrew. “To say truth, I am to the full as anxious to find the one as the other, for it matters not which you—”
 
“Matters not!” repeated Gadarn, fiercely.
 
“Well, of course, I mean that my friendship for you and Bladud makes me wish to see you each satisfied by finding both the boy and the girl.”
 
“For my part,” said Bladud, quietly, “I sincerely hope that we may find them both, for we are equally anxious to do so.”
 
“Equally!” exclaimed Gadarn, with a look of lofty surprise. “Dost mean to compare your regard for your young friend with a father’s love for his only child!”
 
The prince did not easily take offence, but he could not refrain from a flush and a frown as he replied, sharply—
 
“I make no useless comparisons, chief. It is sufficient that we are both full of anxiety, and are engaged in the same quest.”
 
“Ay, the same quest—undoubtedly,” observed the Hebrew in a grumbling, abstracted manner.
 
“If it were possible,” returned Gadarn, sternly, “to give up the search for your boy and confine it entirely to my girl, I would do so. But as they went astray about the same place, we are compelled, however little we like it, to hunt together.”
 
“Not compelled, chief,” cried Bladud, with a look and a flash in his blue eye which presaged a sudden rupture of friendly relations. “We can each go our own way and hunt on our own account.”
 
“Scarcely,” replied the chief, “for if you found my daughter, you would be bound in honour to deliver her up; and if I found your boy, I should feel myself bound to do the same.”
 
“It matters not a straw which is found,” cried the Hebrew, exasperated at the prospect of a quarrel between the two at such an inopportune moment. “Surely, as an old man, I have the right to remonstrate with you for encouraging anything like disagreement when our success in finding the boy,—I—I mean the girl,—depends—”
 
A burst of laughter from the chief cut him short.
 
“You don’t seem to be quite sure of what you mean,” he cried, “or to be able to say it. Come, come, prince, if the Hebrew claims a right to remonstrate because he is twenty years or so older than I am, surely I may claim the same right, for I am full twenty years older than you. Is it seemly to let your hot young blood boil over at every trifle? Here, let me replenish your platter, for it is ill hunting after man, woman, or beast without a stomach full of victuals.”
 
There was no resisting the impulsive chief.
 
Both his guests cleared their brows and laughed—though ther............