the pages' room and now held him under one arm as he tottered
across the floor. I followed slowly, my old sword tight grasped. At last
we reached the little gay-draped door. The pages' room was empty, and
the corridors laughed to our heel taps as if mocking the dancers. And so
we went out. There was a great chair there held by two men; into this he
went; but I had my own mind of where to go so my old rusty sword was
through the back of the hind chairman in a moment's time, and as he
fell, the forward man ran round to try the door again, crying out; but I
swung my sword and hit him in the side, and the old blade grided in so
that the stuff came out, and he fell down dead on the steps. When the
noise these men were making had stopped, I went and opened the door and
sat me down inside with Him, and in a very few soft words told Him who I
was; but being so old He could not understand though He was very
frightened and knelt down trembling in the bottom of the chair. Then I
asked Him where were horses, and He told me, mumbling, and I went to a
farmer's stable and took a horse out, first feeding him well and giving
him drink; then on this horse I put Him and wrapped Him in the
horse-cleaner's old rugs and cloths. Then mounting up behind him, I
guided the beast to the main road that runs along the water, and for
many hours we travelled, jolting, in the darkness. Then the moon rose,
and all the world was silver, and the sea lay black except where the
sword-blade from the moon was laid across it. The moon was high. It was
as light as day when I turned inland from the sea at last, and
underneath great trees, and past small hills that rose and left dark
hollows where drifts lay, we went. It was as light as the light of day,
when all the hills seemed to rise up about us in their whiteness, and
the trees stood black on the summits, white on their tops, and casting
huge shadows that moved.

"Here," I said; and getting down from the horse, I turned to Him and
lifted Him down also. "This is the place," I said; and taking Him under
the arms as I had seen the serving-man do, I led Him down into the
valley where the snow did not break to our tread, and standing there in
the valley, holding Him under the arms, I called aloud three times the
cry of a wolf. For a long time we stood there in silence till the cry
had long echoed away; then from the right of me there slid a white wolf
from the hill-top. He slid to the bottom of the hill a little