h John was a fine tall man.

'With you, Richard, with you--but never without you!' said John, in a
hush, rolling his eyes about. Richard, taking no notice, bid them set
open the doors. This was done: the chill taint of the dark, of wax and
damp and death came out. John shivered, but King Richard left him to
shiver, and passed out of the sun into the echoing nave. Lightly and
fiercely he went in, like a brave man who is fretful until he meets his
danger's face; and John caught at his wrist, and went tiptoe after him.
All the rest, Poictevins and Frenchmen together, followed in a pack;
then the two bishops vested.

At the far end of the church, beyond the great Rood, they saw the
candles flare about a bier. Before that was a little white altar with a
priest saying his mass in a whisper. The high altar was all dark, and
behind a screen in the north transept the nuns were singing the Office
for the Dead. King Richard pushed on quickly, the others trooping
behind. There in the midst of all this chilly state, grim and
sour-faced, as he had always been, but now as unconcerned as all the
dead are, lay the empty majesty of England, careless (as it seemed) of
the full majesty; and dead Anjou a stranger to the living.

It was not so altogether, if we are to believe those who saw it. The
hatred of the dead is a fearful thing: of that which followed be God the
only judge, and I not even the reporter. Milo saw it, and Milo (who got
some comfort out of it at last) shall tell you the tale; 'for I know,'
says he, 'that in the end the hidden things are to be made plain, and
even so, things which then I guessed darkly have since been opened out
to my understanding. Behold!' he goes on, 'I tell you a mystery. Lightly
and adventuring came King Richard to his dead father, and Count John
dragging behind him like a load of care. Reverently he knelt him down
beside the bier, prayed for a little, then, looking up, touched the grey
old face. Before God, I say, it was the act of a boy. But slowly,
slowly, we who watched quaking saw a black stream well at the nostril of
the dead, and slowly drag a snake's way down the jaw: a sight to shake
those fraught with God--and what to men in their trespasses? But while
all the others fell back gasping, or whispering their prayers, scarce
knowing what I was or did (save that I loved King Richard), I whipt
forward with a handkerchief to cover the horror out of sight. This I
would have done, though all had se