_Almighty and everlasting God, Who dost govern all things in heaven and
earth; Mercifully bear the supplications of Thy people, and grant us
Thy peace, all the days of our life; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen._
CHAPTER XXXI
THE CALL OF THE CURLEW
For the last time, the Knight waited in the crypt.
The men-at-arms, having deposited their burden before the altar, leaned
each against a pillar, stolid and unobservant, but ready to drop to
their knees so soon as the chanting of Vespers should reach the crypt
from the choir above.
The man upon the stretcher lay motionless, with bandaged head; yet
there was an alert brightness in his eyes, and the turn of his head
betokened one who listened. A cloak of dark blue, bordered with
silver, covered him, as a pall.
Hugh d'Argent stood in the shadow of a pillar facing the narrow archway
in the wall from which the winding stairs led up to the clerestory.
From this position he could also command a view of the steps leading up
into the crypt from the underground way, and of the ground to be
traversed by the White Ladies as they passed from the steps to the
staircase in the wall.
Here the Knight kept his final vigil.
A strange buoyancy possessed him. He seemed to have left his
despondence, like a heavy weight, at the bottom of the river. From the
moment when, his breath almost exhausted, he had seen and grasped the
Bishop's stone, bringing it in triumph to the surface, Hugh had felt
sure he would win.
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