He took it from where it rested against the wall and gave it me, turning at once to follow our comrades. Then I knew the spear well enough, for I had seen it over close to me once before. It was Gymbert's boar spear.
[CHAPTER XII]. HOW QUENDRITHA THE QUEEN HAD HER WILL.
Slowly the footfalls of our comrades died away down the low passage, and then the last flicker of their torch passed from the stone walls of that terrible pit, leaving Selred and myself alone in the cold moonlight. Out through the doors toward the council chamber I saw the Mercian thane, who had been watching us in silence, sit down at the table and set his head in his hands wearily; and I heard Erling try the bars of the door to the guest hall, and finding it impossible to open, after a while pass into the council chamber, and set himself against the great door once more.
After that there fell a dead silence over all the place, and it was uncanny. It seemed impossible that all men should sleep in peace in the palace where such a deed had been wrought at our feet. I had rather the rush and yell of the Welsh over these ramparts they hated than this stillness of coldly-planned treachery.
Nor should I have been surprised if at any moment I had heard the tramp of men who came to fall on us and end what had been begun, or the cries and din of arms which should tell that they had fallen on the sleeping thanes of Anglia in the guest hall. Anything was possible after what had been wrought already, and indeed it was hardly likely that the king should be slain and the servants let go free.
I think that the stillness and waiting for unknown doings thus went near to terrifying me. I know that I started at every sound, if it were but the crackling of the little fire in the council chamber, or the low challenge of one sentry to his fellow as the word which told all well passed round the ramparts. Selred was on his knees, and I would not speak to disturb the prayers which we so sorely needed.
The time seemed long as we waited, but it could not have been much more than ten minutes before I heard the footfalls of our party as they returned by the passage way. One by one they came out from under the arch, and I took the torch from Witred the Mercian, who came first as he had gone, and then helped them one by one to the room again from the pit. Their faces were white and hard set in the light, and Sighard seemed as a man broken and aged in a moment with trouble beyond his bearing. Then I knew that I had to hear the worst, and made ready for it. Witred the Mercian told it quietly.
"This passage runs under the ramparts, and ends in a thicket on the steep by the river. I knew that there were old stones in that, but not one of us knew of the passage. That end has been newly opened, and the tools with which it was done are there yet. A man sat by that entrance on guard outside, and as I came I spoke to him by name and told him who I was. Then he stayed, and we fell on him and bound him without giving him a chance to cry out. Whereon he told all, and it is an evil tale."
He paused, and wiped his forehead, looking round as if he would have any man but himself tell it; but none else spoke.
"Yesterday Gymbert's men sawed the floor through and made this trapdoor. Then they waited underneath, and the king fell, as they had expected, into the ready arms that waited him. There were Gymbert and half a dozen of his men. The cushion stayed his cry, and he was helpless. Yet he was very strong, and so Gymbert snatched his own sword from his side and smote off his head. Out by the river they had a cart waiting, and they bore him away at speed. We saw and followed the wheel tracks till we lost them, and could do no more. Then we bound and gagged the man, and have haled him halfway down the passage till we need him again. That is all."