And muttered the driving rain.”
The entrance of the traitors, with “three hundred armèd men,” urges on the climax of the tragedy, until at last the king, discovered in the vault where he had hastily hidden:
“Half-naked stood, but stood as one
Who yet could do and dare.
With the crown, the King was stript away,—
The Knight was ’reft of his battle array,—
But still the man was there!”
The poem ends on a stern note of revenge and retribution, for, when the shameful deed is done, the queen keeps watch for a whole month beside the royal body; refusing to permit the burial till every one of the “murderous league” is put to a more terrible death than his lord.
“And then she said,—‘My King, they are dead!’
And she knelt on the chapel floor,