Scarcely had Sir Richard Pendragon made a hole that was large enough to accommodate his great bulk when we heard the footsteps of the sentinel coming round to see that all was well. In a gentle voice, so that he might not wake the King, we heard him singing of his love, who, it seemed, was a flower of Andalucia. Yet just as he came up to us, with his sword gleaming in the moonlight, he tripped over Sir Richard Pendragon’s outstretched leg and measured his length upon the earth. Before he could utter a cry, Sir Richard Pendragon had buried a knife in his heart.
“The dead don’t speak,” he whispered in a soft voice. He wiped the stains from his dagger upon the gaberdine of the man he had slain and replaced it in his jerkin.
In the next moment he had disappeared. In the fashion of a hugeous reptile he had crawled through the hole he had made into the interior of the King’s pavilion. In the weary time of suspense that followed upon his absence the Count of Nullepart and myself lay in the grass listening to the beating of our hearts, and occasionally exchanging a whisper to assure each other that we did not dream.
Beside us lay the dead soldier. At any instant his comrades were likely to be here to seek him. Had they come, I fear there would have been only one course open to us; although I think that both the Count of Nullepart and myself, being peacefully given, breathed a prayer that we should be spared the occasion to enter upon it.
It seemed an age, yet it could have been little more than five minutes, ere this suspense was terminated; and then, without a sound or a struggle from within the tent, a huge sack filled with a heavy substance was pushed through the hole.
The sight of the sack gave me a thrill I cannot describe. Something cold and sharp ran in my veins, and I nearly cried out. The next thing of which I was aware was the smiling and sinister countenance of the Englishman as he crept through the hole. Considering his bulk it was surprising that he could squeeze so noiselessly through such a little space. And in the same moment we heard a second sentinel coming round the pavilion.
I could hardly tell what happened, it was all so quick and so horrible. In a dull bewilderment I watched Sir Richard Pendragon creep through the hole, and then as the oncoming sentinel caught a view of the sack and the corpse of his fallen comrade he uttered a cry. But in so doing he spoke for the last time. With incredible swiftness and dexterity the unlucky wretch was slain.
“Now there is that third poor soul,” said the Englishman in a hushed voice. “Do you abide here, good friends, for honest Dickon, while that good mother’s son relieves the poor soldier of his necessity.”
Taking the dagger in his teeth, he began to crawl on his belly round the corner of the pavilion. While he was gone upon this errand, which, however ruthless in its character, was yet highly politic in its intention, both the Count of Nullepart and myself derived satisfaction from some tokens of animation which proceeded from the interior of the bag.
“Mon Dieu!” said the Count of Nullepart, laughing softly, “is it not well, my dear, that you and I are spared that abominable crime of regicide, which all the best authors are agreed doth stink so particularly in the nostrils of Heaven?”