ustle, man; bring out your blade and be off."

Theron turned away with a gesture of sorrow.

"King Robert the Bad!" he said, beneath his breath. Then he entered his
hut again and passed to an inner room, where Perpetua sat spinning. As
she looked up he laid his finger on his lip.

"I am called to Syracuse," he said. "Bolt doors and bar windows. Make
all fast and firm. Open to none till I return."

"Why, who should come?" Perpetua asked, pausing in her work. Her clear
eyes saw the trouble in her father's face, but she did not seek its
cause, for he had laid finger on lip.

Theron shivered as if cold. "I do not know," he said. "Open to none."

Perpetua rose and rested her hands on his shoulders and looked into his
eyes.

"You speak as if you feared something," she whispered.

And Theron whispered back, "Perhaps I do."

Perpetua shook her head, and the flame of her hair rippled over her
shoulders.

"God's will rules the world. There is nothing to fear. Farewell, dear
father."

Theron took her face in his two brown, wrinkled hands and kissed it
tenderly.

"Farewell, eaglet," he sighed. Then he left her and went into the open,
bearing the great sword, that seemed to gleam crimson with the sunlight.
He closed the door behind him carefully, and was making for the
mountain-path, when Hildebrand caught him by the arm.

"Is that the headsman's weapon? 'Tis a pretty piece of steel. Can your
withered sinews still wield it?"

Theron looked at his interrogator with a frown of disdain for his
foppery.

"I doubt if you could do as much, younker," he growled.

Hildebrand only laughed.

"Do you think because I am feathered like a bird-of-paradise that I have
no sap in me? Let me handle your chin-chopper."

Still smiling, he took the sword from Theron, who watched him
contemptuously. Hildebrand, to his surprise, lifted the sword easily
with one hand, played with it as if it were no heavier than a staff of
wood, threw it lightly from his right hand to his left hand and back
again, and then returned it to Theron, from whose face contempt had
vanished.

"'Tis finely poised," Hildebrand commented, "but something light for its
purpose; yet it will serve its turn. Away!"

"Do you accompany me?" Theron asked, with more respect than he had yet
shown to the King's man.

Hildebrand shook his head.

"Not I, old man. I say a prayer or two in the chapel by the side of my
liege lord that I may return with a smooth soul to