CHAPTER LII.
The Treachery of the Long Knives--The North Briton--The Wounded Butcher--The Prisoner.
On the tenth of September our little town was flung into some confusion by one butcher having attempted to cut the throat of another.

The delinquent was a Welshman, who it was said had for some time past been somewhat out of his mind; the other party was an Englishman, who escaped without further injury than a deep gash in the cheek.

The Welshman might be mad, but it appeared to me that there was some method in his madness.
He tried to cut the throat of a butcher: didn't this look like wishing to put a rival out of the way?
and that butcher an Englishman: didn't this look like wishing to pay back upon the Saxon what the Welsh call bradwriaeth y cyllyll hirion, the treachery of the long knives?
So reasoned I to myself.

But here perhaps the reader will ask what is meant by "the treachery of the long knives ?" whether he does or not I will tell him.
Hengist wishing to become paramount in Southern Britain thought that the easiest way to accomplish his wish would be by destroying the South British chieftains.

Not believing that he should be able to make away with them by open force he determined to see what he could do by treachery.