Whilst I thought thus, lost in a rapture such as I had not felt since Blanche kissed me at the mouth of the Hastings cave after I had killed the three Frenchmen with as many arrows from my black bow, I heard a sound and looked up to see a man standing before me.
“Who is it?” I asked, grasping my sword, for his face was hidden in the shadows.
“I,” answered a voice which I knew to be that of Kari.
“Then how did you come here? I saw no one pass the open ground.”
“Master, you are not the only one who loves to walk in gardens in the quiet of the night. I was here before yourself, behind yonder tree,” and he pointed to a palm not three paces distant.
“Then, Kari, you must have seen——”
“Yes, Master, I saw and heard, not everything, because there came a point at which I shut my eyes and stopped my ears, but still much.”
“I am minded to kill you, Kari,” I said between my teeth, “who play the spy upon me.”
“I guessed it would be so, Master,” he replied in his gentlest voice, “and for that reason, as you will notice, I am standing out of reach of your sword. You wonder why I am here. I will tell you. It is not from any desire to watch your love-makings which weary me, who have seen such before, but rather that I might find secrets, of which love is always the loser, and those secrets I have learned. How could I have come by them otherwise, Master?”
“Surely you deserve to die,” I exclaimed furiously.