Next moment, the door swung open and Ludar walked quietly in.
Jeannette led me softly from the place, and kept me cruelly pacing in the outer darkness for half-an-hour before she said: "Art thou not going in to welcome thy friend, Humphrey ?" Need I say what passed, when at last we stood all four together in that great hall?
The old chief had taken his seat again at the table, and sat there solemn and impassive, as if all that had passed had been but the ordinary event of an afternoon.

But the fire in his eye betrayed him, as now and again he half turned his head to the window where Ludar and the maiden stood gazing out across the waves.
"Humphrey, my brother," said Ludar, when at last Jeannette and I drew near, "'tis worth a little storm to be thus in port at last, and to find you there too." "Ay, indeed," said I.

"And, as you see, there are more than I here to greet you." Then he stepped up to Jeannette and gazed in her face a moment, and kissed her on the brow.
"Thou art welcome to Dunluce, sister Jeannette," said he.
Jeannette told me afterwards that she never felt so proud in her life as when Ludar's lips touched her forehead, and she heard him call her sister.
'Twas not in me to complain that it should be so; for the ways of women are beyond my understanding.
Presently the old man rose from his seat, and without a word left us to ourselves.

Ludar then narrated how, when the _Gerona_ broke up, he had fallen near a broken oar, which held him up and enabled him to reach land almost without a bruise.

For a long while he lay in the darkness, not knowing where he was; but when day broke, he found himself in the deep cave that goes under the castle, a prisoner there by the rising tide, and with no means of escape.