CHAPTER FIFTEEN
B
y
dawn Gwyndoc reached the limits of the wooded country, and, coming over a hilltop, looked down across a broad rocky valley. High up the slope, on the further side of the dried river-bed, he saw a long column of men and cattle slowly winding their way between the great boulders towards the hill’s crest. Even from that distance his eyes, made keen by anxiety, picked out the shape of the totem-pole that the leader carried—a bear hugging a warrior—and he knew that this was Mathwlch. He strained to see whether Ygerne and Bryn were in the column, but though he could distinguish a number of figures, heavily wrapped and riding ponies, he could not be sure that his wife and son were there.
No longer looking in fear behind him, he ran forward down the scree slope, sometimes s
