"I will sleep now," he said after a pause.
The minstrel rose to go, bowing a farewell.
"No," said Geoffroi; "stay there, make your bed in that faldestol to-night. I do not care to be alone. And, mark well! that if you hear any untoward noise, or should you hear a sound of men's voices praying, rouse me at once."
He turned his face towards the wall, and before long his deep breathing showed that sleep had come to him.
The candle began to burn very low and to flicker. The jongleur saw enormous purple shadows leap at each other across the room, and play, fantastic, about the bed. He rose and peered out of a narrow unglazed window in the thickness of the wall. The hot air from the room passed by his cheeks as it made its way outside. There was no lightning now, and the sky was beginning to be full of a colourless and clear light, which showed that dawn was about to begin. Far, far away in some distant steading, the jongleur heard the crowing of a cock.
As he watched, the daylight began to flow and flood out of the East, and close to the window he heard a thin, reedy chirp from a starling just half awake.
He turned round towards the room, thinking he heard a stir. He saw the elderly man on the bed risen up upon his elbow. His right hand pointed towards the opposite wall, at a space over the table. With a horrid fear thumping in his heart and sanding his throat, the minstrel saw that Geoffroi's eyes were open in an extremity of terror, and his nostrils were caught up and drawn like a man in a fit.
"My lord! my lord!" he quavered at him.
There was no sign that Geoffroi heard him, except for a quivering of his pointing, rigid finger. The minstrel took up a vessel of glass from the table, and flung it on the floor.
The crash roused the Baron. His arm dropped and his face relaxed, and, with a little groan, he fell face down in a swoon. The minstrel hopped about the room in an agony of indecision. Then he took the jug of wine, the only liquid he could find, and, turning the Baron on his back, he flung it in his face.