“And I am called Geoffrey,” he said, in reply.
“I think we might find a key,” Elaine repeated.
She turned towards the other side of the room, and there hung a great bunch of brass keys dangling from the lock of a heavy door.
Ah, Hubert! thou art more careless than Brother Clement, I think, to have left those keys in such a place!
Quickly did Elaine cross to that closed door, and laid her hand upon the bunch. The door came open the next moment, and she gave a shriek to see the skin of a huge lizard-beast fall forward at her feet, and also many cups and flagons, that rolled over the floor, dotting it with little drops of wine.
Hearing Elaine shriek, and not able to see from his prison what had befallen her, Geoffrey shouted out in terror to know if she had come to any hurt.
“No,” she told him; and stood eyeing first the crocodile’s hide and then the cups, setting her lips together very firmly. “And they were not even dry,” she said after a while. For she began to guess a little of the truth.
“Not dry? Who?” inquired Geoffrey.
“Oh, Geoffrey!” she burst out in deep anger, and then stopped, bewildered. But his heart leaped to hear her call his name.
“Are there no keys?” he asked.