d moonlight. Out through the doors toward the council
chamber I saw the Mercian thane, who had been watching us in
silence, sit down at the table and set his head in his hands
wearily; and I heard Erling try the bars of the door to the guest
hall, and finding it impossible to open, after a while pass into
the council chamber, and set himself against the great door once
more.

After that there fell a dead silence over all the place, and it was
uncanny. It seemed impossible that all men should sleep in peace in
the palace where such a deed had been wrought at our feet. I had
rather the rush and yell of the Welsh over these ramparts they
hated than this stillness of coldly-planned treachery.

Nor should I have been surprised if at any moment I had heard the
tramp of men who came to fall on us and end what had been begun, or
the cries and din of arms which should tell that they had fallen on
the sleeping thanes of Anglia in the guest hall. Anything was
possible after what had been wrought already, and indeed it was
hardly likely that the king should be slain and the servants let go
free.

I think that the stillness and waiting for unknown doings thus went
near to terrifying me. I know that I started at every sound, if it
were but the crackling of the little fire in the council chamber,
or the low challenge of one sentry to his fellow as the word which
told all well passed round the ramparts. Selred was on his knees,
and I would not speak to disturb the prayers which we so sorely
needed.

The time seemed long as we waited, but it could not have been much
more than ten minutes before I heard the footfalls of our party as
they returned by the passage way. One by one they came out from
under the arch, and I took the torch from Witred the Mercian, who
came first as he had gone, and then helped them one by one to the
room again from the pit. Their faces were white and hard set in the
light, and Sighard seemed as a man broken and aged in a moment with
trouble beyond his bearing. Then I knew that I had to hear the
worst, and made ready for it. Witred the Mercian told it quietly.

"This passage runs under the ramparts, and ends in a thicket on the
steep by the river. I knew that there were old stones in that, but
not one of us knew of the passage. That end has been newly opened,
and the tools with which it was done are there yet. A man sat by
that entrance on guard outside, and as I came I spoke to him by
name and told him w