”

“Ah, dear my lord, an ye will but persuade him! Consider how these his tortures wound me!

Oh, and he will not speak! — whereas, the healing, the solace that lie in a blessed swift death — ”

“What are you maundering about? He’s going out from here a free man and whole — he’s not going to die.”

The man’s white face lit up, and the woman flung herself at me in a most surprising explosion of joy, and cried out:

“He is saved! — for it is the king’s word by the mouth of the king’s servant — Arthur, the king whose word is gold!”

“Well, then you do believe I can be trusted, after all. Why didn’t