Sebert’s hand was lifted from the red cloak to touch the thin cheek caressingly. “I should be extreme ungrateful were I to say less, dear lad. There is a man’s courage in your boy’s body, and I think a woman could not be more faithful in her love—How! Are you cold that you shiver so? Pull the corner of my cloak about you.”
But the page cast it off impatiently. “No, no, it is nothing; no more than that one of those men out there may have walked across the spot that is to be my grave. Sooner would I bite my tongue off than interrupt you. I ask you not to let it hinder your speech.”
Again a kind of affectionate pity came into the young noble’s face. “Does it mean so much to you to hear that you have been faithful in your service?”
“It means—so much to me!” the boy repeated softly; and if the man’s ear had not been far afield, he might have divined the secret of the green tunic only from the tenderness of the low voice. But when his mind came back to his companion again, the lad was looking at him with a little smile touching the curves of his wistful mouth.
“Do you know why this mishap which has occurred to you seems great luck for me? Because otherwise it is not likely that you would have found out how true a friend I could be. If it had happened that I had gone with Rothgar’s messenger that night, you would have remembered me only as one who could entertain you when it was your wish to laugh. But now, since it has been allowed me to endure suffering with you and to share your mind when it was bitterest, you have given me a place in your heart. And to-morrow, when we go forth together, and the Dane slays me with you because it will be open to him then that for your sake I have become unfaithful to him, you will remember our fellowship even to—”
But Sebert’s hand silenced the tremulous lips. “No more, youngling! I adjure you by your gentleness,” he whispered unsteadily. “You owe me no such love; and it makes my helplessness a thousand-fold more bitter. Say no more, little comrade, if you would not turn my heart into a woman’s when it has need to be of flint. Sit you here on the ledge the while that I take one more turn. You will not? Then come with me, and we will make the round together, and apply our wits once more to the riddle. Until swords have put an end to me, I shall not cease to believe that it has an answer.”
Below, in the dense blackness of the forest, an occasional owl sounded his echoless cry. From still deeper in the dark, where the Danish camp-fires glowed, a harp-note floated up on the wind with a fragment of wild song. But it was many a long moment before the silence that hovered over the doomed Tower was broken by any sound but the measured tramp of the sentinels.
It was Sebert who brought the dragging pace finally to a halt, throwing himself upon a stone bench to hold his head in his hands. “We cannot drive them off; that needs no further proof. And I do not see how we can hold out till the time that chance entices them away, when but one meal stands between us and starvation, and already we are as weak as rabbits. Naught can profit us save craft.”
The dark head beside him shook hopelessly; but he repeated the verdict with additional emphasis. “I tell you, craft is our only hope; some artfulness that shall undermine their strength even as their tricks crept, snake-like, under our guard.” Turning in his seat, he set his face toward the darkness, clutching his head in renewed effort.
No word came from the page, but a strange look was dawning in his upturned face. Whether it was a great terror that had shaken his soul or whether a joy had come to him that raised him to heaven itself, it was impossible to tell, for the signs of both were in his eyes. And when at last he spoke, both thrilled through his voice. “Lord,” he said slowly, “I think I see where a trick is possible.”