“Oh,—not as if you suspected. Seem to be passing by. Play you are a villager going home late. When they hear that, they’ll run away for fear of their secret. The Dragon will surely stay behind.”
“Why will he stay behind? Why will they run away?”
“Dear Geoffrey, don’t you see that if these men were to be seen in company with the Dragon by one who till now knew them as monks, where would their living be gone to? Of course, they will get themselves out of sight, and the Dragon will remain as a sort of human scarecrow. Then I’ll come out from the passage-door.”
“One would almost think you desired that villain to kill you,” said Geoffrey. “No, indeed. I’ll not consent to that part.”
“How shall he kill me here?” Elaine replied. “Do you not see the Dragon of Wantley would have to carry a maiden away? He would not dare to put me to the sword. When I come, I shall speak three words to him. Before there is time for him to think what to do, you will hear me say (for you must have now run up from the wood) ‘the legend has come true!’ Then, when I tell him that, do you walk in ready with your sword to keep him polite. Oh, indeed,” said the lady, with her eyes sparkling on Geoffrey, “we must keep his manners good for him. For I think he’s one of those persons who might turn out very rude in a trying situation.”
All this was far from pleasing to young Geoffrey. But Elaine showed him how no other way was to be found by which Sir Francis could be trapped red-handed and distant from help. While the knight was bending his brows down with trying to set his thoughts into some order that should work out a better device, a glare shone over the next hill against the falling flakes.
“Quick!” said Elaine.
She withdrew into the cellar on the instant, and the great door closed between them. Geoffrey stood looking at it very anxiously, and then walked backwards, keeping close to the walls, and so round the tower and into the court, whence he turned and ploughed as fast as he could through the deep drifts till he was inside the trees. “If they spy my steps,” he thought, “it will seem as though some one of the house had gone in there to secure the door.”
Once more the glare flashed against the swiftly-descending curtains of the storm. Slowly it approached, sometimes illuminating a tree-trunk for a moment, then suddenly gleaming on the white mounds where rocks lay deeply cloaked.
“He is pretty slow,” said Geoffrey, shifting the leg he was leaning on.