laid me down and braced my feet
firmly against the door, thus locking it safely.

Jorian and Boris did the same at the other entrances, and before the
former went to sleep he arranged a tall candle that had been placed
unlighted before a little shrine of the Virgin (for, in name at least,
the folk were not wholly pagan) and lighted it, so that it shed a faint
illumination down the long passage in which we were bestowed, and on the
inner door of the ladies' apartment.

And though I was far from being in love, yet the thought of the wandering
damsels, both so fair and so far from home, moved me deeply. And I was in
act to waft a kiss towards the door when Jorian caught me.

"What now?" he said; "art at thy prayers, lad ?"

"Aye, that am I," said I, "towards the shrine of the Saints' Rest."

Now this was irreverent, and mayhap afterwards we were all soundly
punished for it. But at least it was on the level of their soldiers'
wit--though I own, at the most, no great matter to cackle of.

"Ho! ho! Good!" chuckled Boris, under his breath. "One of them is
doubtless a saint. But as to the other--well, let us ask the Prince. 'He
hath a Princess, and she is oft upon her travels?' Ho! ho! ho!"

And the lout shook among his straw to such an extent that I bade him for
God's dear sake to bide still, otherwise we might as lief lie in a barn
among questing rattons.

"And the saints of your Saints' Rest defend us from lying among any
worse!" said he, and betook him to sleep.

CHAPTER XXIII

HUGO OF THE BROADAXE

But as for me, sleep I could not. And indeed that is small wonder. For it
was the first night I had ever slept out of the Red Tower in my life. I
seemed to lack some necessary accompaniment to the act of going to sleep.

It was a long while before I could find out what it could be that was
disturbing me. At last I discovered that it was the howling of the
kennelled blood-hounds which I missed. For at night they even raged, and
leaped on the barriers with their forefeet, hearing mayhap the moving to
and fro of men come sleeplessly up from the streets of the city beneath.

But here, within a long day's march of Thorn, I had come at once into a
new world. Slowly the night dragged on. The candle guttered. A draught of
air blew fitfully through the corridor in which we lay. It carried the
flame of the candle in the opposite direction. I wondered whence it could
come, for the air had been still and thick before.