looked thitherward, he heard the rattle of dice and a sleepy voice that cursed drowsily, and shaking off the clutching, desperate fingers that strove to stay him, he came, soft-treading, and peered through the curtains.  Thus he beheld two men that faced each other across a table whereon was wine, with dice and store of money, and as they played, these men yawned, leaning heavily upon the table.  Back swept the curtains and striding into the room Beltane stared upon these men, who, yet leaning upon the table, stared back at him open-mouthed.  But, beholding the look in his blue eyes and the smile that curled his mouth, they stumbled to their feet and sought to draw weapon—­then Beltane sprang and caught them each about the neck, and, swinging them wide-armed, smote their heads together; and together these men sank in his grasp and lay in a twisted huddle across the table among the spilled wine.  A coin rang upon the stone floor, rolled into a distant corner and came to rest, the jester gasped in the shadow of the curtains; and so came silence, broke only by the soft drip, drip of the spilled wine.

“O, mercy of God!” whispered the jester hoarsely at last, “what need was there for this—­they would have slept—­”

“Aye,” smiled Beltane, “but not so soundly as now, methinks.  Come, let us go.”

Silently the jester went on before, by narrow passage-ways that writhed and twisted in the thickness of the walls, up sudden flights of steps until at length they came out upon a parapet whose grim battlements scowled high in air.  But as they hasted on, flitting soft-footed ’neath pallid moon, the jester of a sudden stopped, and turning, dragged Beltane into the shadows, for upon the silence came the sound of mailed feet pacing near.  Now once again Beltane brake from the jester’s clutching fingers and striding forward, came face to face with one that bare a pike on mailed shoulder, and who, beholding Beltane, halted to peer at him with head out-thrust; quoth he: 

“Ha! stand!  Stand, I say and speak me who thou art?”

Then Beltane laughed softly; said he: 

“O fool, not to know—­I am death!” and with the word, he leapt.  Came a cry, muffled in a mighty hand, a grappling, fierce yet silent, and Beda, cowering back, beheld Beltane swing a writhing body high in air and hurl it far out over the battlements.  Thereafter, above the soft rustle of the night-wind, a sound far below—­a faint splash, and Beda the Jester, shivering in the soft-stirring night wind, shrank deeper into the gloom and made a swift motion as though, for all his folly, he had crossed himself.

Then came Beltane, the smile still twisting his mouth; quoth he: 

“Forsooth, my strength is come back again; be there any more that I may deal withal, good Fool?”

“Lord,” whispered the shivering jester, “methinks I smell the dawn—­ Come!”