Half choked with rage, King Robert fiercely said,

"Open: 'Tis I, the King! Art thou afraid?"

The frightened sexton muttering with a curse,

"This is some drunken vagabond or worse!"

Turned the great key and flung the portal wide;

A man rushed by him at a single stride,

Haggard, half naked, without hat or cloak,

Who neither turned, nor looked at him, nor spoke,

But leaped into the blackness of the night,

And vanished like a spectre from his sight.