We walked for rather more than a mile, and I knew exactly what our destination was, long before we got there.  In the centre of one of the glades, there is the shattered stump of what must at some time have been a most gigantic tree.  It is called the Abbot’s Beech, and there are so many ghostly stories about it, that I know many a brave soldier who would not care about mounting sentinel over it.  However, I cared as little for such folly as the Emperor did, so we crossed the glade and made straight for the old broken trunk.  As we approached, I saw that two men were waiting for us beneath it.

When I first caught sight of them they were standing rather behind it, as if they were not anxious to be seen, but as we came nearer they emerged from its shadow and walked forward to meet us.  The Emperor glanced back at me, and slackened his pace a little so that I came within arm’s length of him.  You may think that I had my hilt well to the front, and that I had a very good look at these two people who were approaching us.

The one was tall, remarkably so, and of very spare frame, while the other was rather below the usual height, and had a brisk, determined way of walking.  They each wore black cloaks, which were slung right across their figures, and hung down upon one side, like the mantles of Murat’s dragoons.  They had flat black caps, like those I have since seen in Spain, which threw their faces into darkness, though I could see the gleam of their eyes from beneath them.  With the moon behind them and their long black shadows walking in front, they were such figures as one might expect to meet at night near the Abbot’s Beech.  I can remember that they had a stealthy way of moving, and that as they approached, the moonshine formed two white diamonds between their legs and the legs of their shadows.

The Emperor had paused, and these two strangers came to a stand also within a few paces of us.  I had drawn up close to my companion’s elbow, so that the four of us were facing each other without a word spoken.  My eyes were particularly fixed upon the taller one, because he was slightly the nearer to me, and I became certain as I watched him that he was in the last state of nervousness.  His lean figure was quivering all over, and I heard a quick, thin panting like that of a tired dog.  Suddenly one of them gave a short, hissing signal.  The tall man bent his back and his knees like a diver about to spring, but before he could move, I had jumped with drawn sabre in front of him.  At the same instant the smaller man bounded past me, and buried a long poniard in the Emperor’s heart.