“He was my friend,” the eunuch faltered.  “I wished to pray for him that was my friend.”

“Pray?  To thy heathen gods?” Upon his coat of mail the captain thumped a vigorous sign of the cross.  “Go, get thee back, lest aught should happen in thy absence.  Thou knowest the penalty, both for thee and any gallant that dare pass the Lady Suelva’s portal.  Thou know’st the penalty,” and he slapped his thigh with the flat of the halberd that hung from his girdle.

“Hush!” Faint from across the courtyard came a voice singing, a high fresh tenor voice.  The black sprang to his feet and stood rooted in trembling horror.  “From what corner of the yard comes that serenading?” thundered the captain.  The jester rose to the window; he looked first out into the courtyard, then back at the eunuch, who stood picking nervously at his tunic; then out of the window again.  “From below the Lady Suelva’s chambers.  See!  Someone is climbing the winding steps of her balcony!”

“And Lady Suelva?  Has she come out on the balcony?”

“I cannot see; a tilting-post stands directly in the way.”  In the furthest corner of the donjon, a dim black square disclosed an ugly trap leading down to the torture-room.  To the trap-door the captain bounded, and from above, they could hear the thump of his feet on the creaking ladder.  He was up again in an instant, chuckling viciously.  “I found them all asleep, the old torturer and his two sons.  But ho! they are awake now—­I kicked them hard awake.  They have much to do to-night.”  He stopped for a moment at the big iron door.  “Wait here till I return,” he commanded, and ran stealthily into the courtyard.

The eunuch fell to his knees again, and prayed jabberingly—­this time for his own soul.  The jester softly trod the length and breadth of the stone flaggings, and stopped to peer at the corpse and its face.  “Jesu ha’ mercy,” he repeated ofttimes; “Jesu ha’ mercy!”

The pulsating suspense broke with the reentrance of the captain.  Over his shoulder was slung a dark, limp burden which he swung down and held out in the crook of his thick arms, as if it were a doll.

“Twas a tussle the young peacock gave me,” he said thickly.  “Look ye—­I have lost my flambeau, but come to the window and take a squint at him.”  He held the figure up to the grating, to where the moon shone pale on its face and tumbled locks and over its gay-colored tunic, and lustered its silken hose.

“By St. Godfrey, what a handsome lad!  Who is he?”

“Methinks he is a squire but lately come to court, so there’ll be few to miss him, when the night’s work is done.”

The jester sighed.  “So young he is and fair.  See that great purple welt across his forehead.”

“’Twas where I clubbed him senseless.”

“And must thou torture him to death?  Must he so surely die?”

“Aye, so run my orders.  He will die—­and thou too, black.  Hold thou my burden, fool, whilst I undo my halberd!”