In Carlisle the time of the end was drawing near. Throughout the death-day of the blacksmith at Wythburn the two men who were to die for his crime on the morrow sat together in their cell in the Donjon tower.
Ralph was as calm as before, and yet more cheerful. The time of atonement was at hand. The ransom was about to be paid. To break the hard fate of a life, of many lives, he had come to die, and death was here!
Bent and feeble, white as his smock, and with staring eyes, Sim continued to protest that God would not let them die at this time and in this place.
“If He does,” he said, “then it is not true what they have told us, that God watches over all!”
“What is that you are saying, old friend?” returned Ralph. “Death comes to every one. The black camel kneels at the gate of all. If it came to some here and some there, then it would be awful indeed.”
“But to die before our time is terrible, it is,” said Sim.
“Before our time—what time?” said Ralph. “To-day or to-morrow—who shall say which is your time or mine?”
“Aye, but to die like this!” said Sim, and rocked himself in his seat.
“And is it not true that a short death is the sovereign good hap of life?”
“The shame of it—the shame of it,” Sim muttered.