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What other man had Richard of York taken so dearly to his heart, to what other man had the august father said, "Protect my sons"? Before him seemed literally to rise the phantom of that honoured prince, and with clay-cold lips to ask, "Art thou, of all the world, the doomsman of my first-born?"
The two young men shook hands heartily, albeit a certain constraint was immediately to fall upon them. For Constans could not be unmindful of his purpose, and Ulick was a true Doomsman, and hatred of the House-dweller was the first article in his hereditary creed. The inheritance of a naked sword lay between them. Was it not inevitable that one or the other of them should be moved to take it up?
Then he should learn the name of his doomsman, and the horrible nature of the death that awaited him." Ragobah paused here as if overcome by his disappointment, and I said, "And how did you intend to kill him?" He gave a throaty chuckle, as he replied: "It was all so very pretty! I had only to saturate the bedclothes with oil and set fire to them.
He struck at the Doomsman with his hunting-knife, but the latter caught his wrist with the grip of a wolf-trap. Yet even at that moment of stress Quinton Edge's voice preserved its soft, mincing inflections; the man wore his irritating affectations of speech as jauntily as he did the ostrich plumes in his cap. "A brave ruffling of feathers but gently, gently boy, you are frightening the lady.
Hilyard was yet asleep in the chamber assigned to him as his prison, when a rough grasp shook off his slumbers, and he saw the earl before him, with a countenance so changed from its usual open majesty, so dark and sombre, that he said involuntarily, "You send me to the doomsman, I am ready!" "Hist, man! Thou hatest Edward of York?" "An it were my last word, yes!"
For a moment he thought of the dungeons of his fortress, of the rope of his doomsman; but his conscience at that hour was sore and vexed.
Certainly his dress and equipment proclaimed him a Doomsman, and by the same token he must have recognized that Constans was an alien. Yet he smiled and held out his hand as he came up. "It is Constans, of course; for who else among the House People would dare to cross the Gray Wolf's threshold. Do you not remember Ulick?"
For a moment he thought of the dungeons of his fortress, of the rope of his doomsman; but his conscience at that hour was sore and vexed.
It were waste of breath to renew the argument, and within the quarter of an hour the two women, closely shawled and veiled, descended the steps to the street. It was still storming. A coach drawn by two horses was waiting at the curb, and the Doomsman, having assisted his unwilling guests to mount within, took his place on the box with the driver, the three men following on horseback.
And the sound of this clock took possession of every silence until it seemed like the voice of a doomsman counting off the seconds.
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