While these threads of memory glimmered in his mind the small tallow rush-light which lit the dungeon flickered and went out.  The chapel clock struck six.  The King made a gesture which meant that the time of music was over, and Eustace went back to the canteen, where the men of the guard were playing at dice by the light of smoky rush-lights.  The King lay down on his wooden pallet, whose linen was delicate and of lawn, embroidered with his own cipher and crown.  The pillow, which was stuffed with scented rushes, was delicious to the cheek, and yielding.

* * * * *

All that night in London Queen Isabella had been waiting for the news from France.  A storm was blowing across the Channel, and the ships (their pilots were Germans, and bungled in reading the stars) making for the port turned back towards Dunquerque.  It was a storm such as, if you are in a small boat, turns you back from Broughty Ferry to the Goodwin Sands.  The Queen, who took counsel of no one, was in two minds as to her daring deed, and her hostage trembled in an uncertain grasp.  In Saxony the banished favourites talked wildly, cursing the counsels of London; but Saxony was heedless and unmoved.  And Piers Gaveston spoke heated words in vain.

The King, who was in that lethargic state of slumber, between sleep and waking, heard a shuffle of steps beyond the door; a cold sweat broke once more on his forehead, and he waved his left hand listlessly.  Outside the sun had risen, and a broad daylight flooded the wet meadows and the brimming tide of the Severn, catching the sails of the boats that were heeling and trembling on the ripple of the water, which was stirred by the South wind.  The King looked towards the window with weariness, expecting, as far as his lethargy allowed, the advent of another monotonous day.

The door opened.  The faces he saw by the gaoler’s torch were not those he expected.  The King, I say, looked towards them, and his hands trembled, and the moisture on them glistened.  They were dark, and one of them was concealed by a silken mask.

Three men entered the dungeon.  In the hands of the foremost of the three glowed a red-hot iron, which was to be the manner of his doom.

THE ISLAND

“Perhaps we had better not land after all,” said Lewis as he was stepping into the boat; “we can explore this island on our way home.”

“We had much better land now,” said Stewart; “we shall get to Teneriffe to-morrow in any case.  Besides, an island that’s not on the chart is too exciting a thing to wait for.”

Lewis gave in to his younger companion, and the two ornithologists, who were on their way to the Canary Islands in search of eggs, were rowed to shore.

“They had better fetch us at sunset,” said Lewis as they landed.

“Perhaps we shall stay the night,” responded Stewart.

“I don’t think so,” said Lewis; but after a pause he told the sailors that if they should be more than half an hour late they were not to wait, but to come back in the morning at ten.  Lewis and Stewart walked from the sandy bay up a steep basaltic cliff which sloped right down to the beach.