In spite of his anxiety to have done with the business in hand and be away, the magnificent scene within the great council hall held Sir Richard fascinated in front of the first window through which he chanced to peer.
In massive silver sconces round about the walls hundreds of candles were alight. Standing upon a raised dais, Lord Douglas was engaged in delivering an earnest oration. The jackdaws around the table marked his every pause with solemn noddings. Viewed as Sir Richard was viewing it, from a great height and through a pane of ruby colored glass, it all appeared grotesquely unreal, weird, and fairylike.
Not a word reached to where he was standing, but the young knight divined that Douglas must have finished speaking, for the conclave of jackdaws arose, and, bowing, remained standing beside their chairs. Then, upon Douglas waving his sword, two pages parted the draperies from the wide entrance, and the lean, tall figure of the knight in black moved in a deliberate and stately manner down the steps.
He was not wearing his casque, and when he had drawn within the full glare of the multitude of lights every feature of his elongated visage was set vividly before Sir Richard. He could not repress an exclamation of amazement.
He recognized him to be the mysterious keeper of the Red Tavern—Tyrrell.
The young knight was not aware of how long he remained standing beside the window, with his face pressed close against its ruby pane. Though he did not realize it, the scene then being enacted upon the mosaic floor far beneath him was one well worth pausing to witness. It was the assembling of the nucleus of a wonderful movement, the deep, still center of a wide whirlpool of elaborate conspiracy and action. From those clear brains were emanating invisible wires and arms of steel, which, clutching the individual, thrust him mercilessly and inevitably ahead in the vanguard of the movement. They were not human down there. Each of them was but a cold, bloodless, and calculating automaton. Lives, to them, were like pinches of sand upon blood-slippery lists, serving but to give purchase to the wheels of their tireless juggernaut.
The young knight watched while Douglas seemed to introduce the inn-keeper to the assembled counselors. Tyrrell's voice must have been uncommonly resonant, for its deep tones came faintly to the ears of the observer at the window. It recalled to him the night of the burial of the hound and the war song. The grace of the speaker's sweeping gestures, as he continued his oration to the men around the table, elicited a genuine admiration from Sir Richard. He kept close to the window till Tyrrell had finished and gone from the hall.
Though the young knight was unable to link himself or his future with the council below, he was sensible of a vague presentiment of a something portentous to his welfare that seemed to communicate itself to him through the walls of the chamber. With an inward sense of creeping fear he started toward the end of the passageway. He noted the trembling of his hand as he laid hold of the iron rung of the ladder leading down to de Claverlok's dungeon. He was afraid of the things that he could not understand.
It was therefore with a deep sense of foreboding evil that he lowered himself to the bottom of the deep well and opened the door of the grizzled knight's dungeon. Upon that afternoon Sir Richard had apprised his friend of his coming, and, saving that he was not wearing his armor, de Claverlok was all prepared and waiting for him.
"Put on your suit of mail," said the young knight hurriedly. "I'll help you to buckle it fast."