His men looked on darkly, as if little in love with the stranger's manner of speech.
"It is ill working in the dark," he said at length.

"Ye speak of this attack and the aid you expect from us, but we have heard this talk before.

One of your people came down with some followers in my father's time, and his words were the same, but lo! nothing has yet happened." "Since your father's time things have changed, my brother.

Then the English were very much on the watch, now they sleep.

Then there were no roads, or very bad ones, and before an army could reach the plains the whole empire would have been wakened.