“No!” said Sir Francis. “I’ll not do this.”
“Then we call Sir Godfrey. The Baron will not love thee very much, seeing how well he loves his Burgundy thou hast drank. Thou gavest him sermons on cold spring-water. He’ll remember that. I think thou’lt be soon hanging. So choose.”
The Knight of the Voracious Stomach was silent.
“This is a pretty scheme thou hast,” he presently said. “And not thine own. She has taught thee this wit, I’ll be bound. Mated to her, thou’lt prosper, I fear.”
“Come, thy choice,” said Geoffrey, sternly.
A sour smile moved the lips of Sir Francis. “Well,” he said, “it has been good while it lasted. Yes, I consent. Our interests lie together. See how Necessity is the mother of Friendship, also.”
The mask was drawn over his face, and they wound the chain about the great body.
“There must be sounds of fighting,” said Elaine. “Make them when I am gone into the house.”
“If I had strangled thee in thy prison, which was in my mind,” said the voice of the hidden speaker, “this folly we—but there. Let it go, and begin.”
Then they fell to making a wonderful disturbance. The Dragon’s voice was lifted in horrid howlings; and the young knight continually bawled with all his lungs. They chased as children in a game do: forward, back, and across to nowhere, knocking the barrels, clanking and clashing, up between the rows and around corners; and the dry earth was ground under their feet and swept from the floor upward in a fine floating yellow powder that they sucked down into their windpipes, while still they hustled and jangled and banged and coughed and grew dripping wet, so the dust and the water mingled and ran black streams along their bodies from the neck downwards, tickling their backs and stomachs mightily. When the breath was no longer inside them, they stopped to listen.