Then Face-of-god looked on him with friendly eyes and said:
'Art thou a foemen? or wilt thou be helpful to us?'
He answered in the speech of the kindreds with the hoarse voice of a
much weather-beaten man:
'Thou seest, lord, that I am naked and unarmed.'
'Yet may'st thou bewray us,' said Face-of-god. 'What man art thou?'
Said the man: 'I am the runaway thrall of evil men; I have fled from
Rose-dale and the Dusky Men. Hast thou the heart to hurt me?'
'We are the foemen of the Dusky Men,' said Face-of-God; 'wilt thou
help us against them?'
The man knit his brows and said: 'Yea, if ye will give me your word
not to suffer me to fall into their hands alive. But whence art
thou, to be so bold?'
Said Face-of-god: 'We are of Burgdale; and I will swear to thee on
the edge of the sword that thou shalt not fall alive into the hands
of the Dusky Men.'
'Of Burgdale have I heard,' said the man; 'and in sooth thou seemest
not such a man as would bewray a hapless man. But now had I best
bring you to some lurking-place where ye shall not be easily found of
these devils, who now oft-times scour the woods hereabout.
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