een but chance that we have found it out before we
went to call him in the morning."

"Silently, without noise, was this wrought, then?" he said, as if
he hardly believed it.

"So silently that if noise there was we could not tell it from the
sounds of men about the house. I pray you come and see what was
planned."

He hesitated for a moment, and then knew that go he must, sooner or
later.

"So let it be," he said. "Bide here, you others."

I turned, and led the way into the bedchamber. There I stooped and
opened the trapdoor, and held the torch so that the light fell into
the pit, without a word. He saw the fallen props, and the chair,
and all else that told him the terrible tale. And as he saw he
reeled a little, and I caught his arm. But he shook off my hand
savagely.

"Tell me," he said, between his teeth, "have you hunted for those
who did this deed?"

"Such of us as might go have done so. Your own door was not left
unguarded, King Offa. But the slayers had gone far hence swiftly."

"An they were wise they would bide there," he said grimly.

Now he was more himself, and his eyes sought the pit and the room
for all he might learn. I saw that he knew the spear of Gymbert,
but he said nothing of it. It came to my mind that to his dying day
King Offa would not forget aught that his eyes lit on in that
place.

"There shall be a reckoning for this," he said at last, turning to
me with a stern look on his face. "Tell me, is it said that in this
I have any part?"

"None have said it, King Offa," I answered.

"They have but thought it," he said; "that is what you mean. Well,
what is that to me? Yet hereafter you shall tell Carl that in it I
had no part."

I bowed, and let that bide. It seemed that to be thought still the
messenger for whose return Carl would look might be some sort of a
safeguard to me if things went ill. Then Offa remembered somewhat.

"What of the Anglian thanes? What will they say when this is known
by them?"

His brow knitted, for he thought of the likelihood of wild turmoil
in the palace, and what would come of the cry of treason.

"They know, and have gone," I said simply. "It seemed best to them
and to your thanes that, seeing that this deed was done and none
could amend it, they should fly hence by this passage. It could not
be foreseen how matters would go with them."

"On my word, some of you have your senses still about you," said
Offa, in that cold voice of his.

And t