ly for Chris, told him that he
had news from London that made his presence there necessary, and ordered
him to be ready to ride with him in a week or two.

CHAPTER X

THE ARENA

It was in the evening of a warm May day that the Prior and Chris arrived
at the hostelry in Southwark, which belonged to Lewes Priory.

It was on the south side of Kater Lane, opposite St. Olave's church, a
great house built of stone with arched gates, with a large porch opening
straight into the hall, which was high and vaulted with a frieze of
grotesque animals and foliage running round it. There were a few
servants there, and one or two friends of the Prior waiting at the porch
as they arrived; and one of them, a monk himself from the cell at
Farley, stepped up to the Prior's stirrup and whispered to him.

Chris heard an exclamation and a sharp indrawing of breath, but was too
well trained to ask; so he too dismounted and followed the others into
the hall, leaving his beast in the hands of a servant.

The Prior was already standing by the monk at the upper end, questioning
him closely, and glancing nervously this way and that.

"To-day?" he asked sharply, and looked at the other horrified.

The monk nodded, pale-faced and anxious, his lower lip sucked in.

The Prior turned to Chris.

"They have suffered to-day," he said.

News had reached Lewes nearly a week before that the Carthusians had
been condemned, for refusing to acknowledge the King as head of the
English Church, but it had been scarcely possible to believe that the
sentence would be carried out, and Chris felt the blood beat in his
temples and his lips turn suddenly dry as he heard the news.

"I was there, my Lord Prior," said the monk.

He was a middle-aged man, genial and plump, but his face was white and
anxious now, and his mouth worked. "They were hanged in their habits,"
he went on. "Prior Houghton was the first despatched;" and he added a
terrible detail or two.

"Will you see the place, my Lord Prior?" he said, "You can ride there.
Your palfrey is still at the door."

Prior Robert Crowham looked at him a moment with pursed lips; and then
shook his head violently.

"No, no," he said. "I--I must see to the house." The monk looked at
Chris.

"May I go, my Lord Prior?" he asked.

The Prior stared at him a moment, in a desperate effort to fix his
attention; then nodded sharply and wheeled round to the door that led to
the upper rooms.

"Mother of