nd me over to
be drawn, hanged and quartered by your brute-king. Kill me now. You can
say that I attacked you, and that you did it in self-defence. I have no
arms, but you may set a dagger in my hand."

Christopher looked down at the poor creature huddled at his feet and
laughed.

"Who would believe me?" he asked; "though, indeed, who would question,
seeing that your life is forfeit to me or any who can take it? Yet that
is a matter of which the King's Justices shall judge."

Maldon shivered. "Drawn, hanged and quartered," he repeated beneath
his breath. "Drawn, hanged and quartered as a traitor to one I never
served!"

"Why not?" asked Christopher. "You have played a cruel game, and lost."

He made no answer; indeed, it was Cicely who spoke, saying--

"How came you in such a case? We thought you fled."

"Lady," he answered, "I've starved for three days and nights in a hole
in the ground like an earthed-up fox; a culvert in your garden hid me.
At last I crept out to see the light and die, and heard you talking,
and thought that I would ask for mercy, since mortal extremity has no
honour."

"Mercy!" said Cicely. "Of your treasons I say nothing, for you are not
English, and serve your own king, who years ago sent you here to plot
against England. But look on this man, my husband. Did he not starve
for three days and nights in your strong dungeon ere you came thither to
massacre him? Did you not strive to burn him in his Hall, and ship him
wounded across the seas to doom? Did you not send your assassin to kill
my babe, who stood between you and the wealth you needed for your plots,
and bind me, the mother, to the stake--a food for fire? Did you not
shoot down my father in the wood, fearing lest he should prove you
traitor, and after rob me of my heritage? Did you not compel your monks
to work evil and bring some of them to their deaths? Oh! have done! Worm
dressed up as God's priest, how can you writhe there and ask for mercy?"

"I said I _came_ to seek for mercy because the agony of sleepless hunger
drove me, who _now_ seek only death. Insult not the fallen, Cicely
Foterell, but take the vengeance that is your due, and kill," replied
the Abbot, looking up at her with his hollow eyes, adding, with a laugh
that sounded like a groan, "Come, Sir Christopher; you have got a sword,
and it is time you went to supper. The air is cold; your wife--if such
she be--said it but now."

"Cicely," said Christopher, "go to the