As he uttered the last word, his looks encountered those of a palmer, who had gradually advanced from the recess in which the attendants were stationed, and now confronted him. The Welshman's eyes looked eagerly ghastly, as if flying from their sockets, while he exclaimed, in a tone of surprise, mingled with horror, "Do the dead come before monarchs?--Or, if thou art alive, _whom_ have I slain?--I dreamed not, surely, of that bound, and of that home-blow?--yet my victim, stands before me! Have I not slain the Constable of Chester?" "Thou hast indeed slain the Constable," answered the King; "but know, Welshman, it was Randal de Lacy, on whom that charge was this morning conferred, by our belief of our loyal and faithful Hugh de Lacy's having been lost upon his return from the Holy Land, as the vessel in which ho had taken passage was reported to have suffered shipwreck. Thou hast cut short Randal's brief elevation but by a few hours; for to-morrow's sun would have again seen him without land or lordship." The prisoner dropped his head on his bosom in evident despair. "I thought," he murmured, "that he had changed his slough, and come forth so glorious, all too soon. May the eyes drop out that were cheated with those baubles, a plumed cap and a lacquered baton!" "I will take care, Welshman, thine eyes cheat thee not again," said the King, sternly; "before the night is an hour older, they shall be closed on all that is earthly." "May I request of your nobleness," said the Constable, "that you will permit me to ask the unhappy man a few questions?" "When I have demanded of him myself," said the King, "why he has dipt his hands in the blood of a noble Norman." "Because he at whom I aimed my blow," said the Briton, his eye glancing fiercely from the King to De Lacy, and back, "had spilled the blood of the descendant of a thousand kings; to which his own gore, or thine, proud Count of Anjou, is but as the puddle of the highway to the silver fountain." Henry's eye menaced the audacious speaker; but the King reined in his wrath when he beheld the imploring look of his servant.--"What wouldst thou ask of him?" he said; "be brief, for his time is short." "So please you, my liege, I would but demand wherefore he has for years forborne to take the life he aimed at, when it was in his power--nay, when it must have been lost but for his seemingly faithful service?" "Norman," said Cadwallon, "I will answer thee. When I first took upon me thy service, it was well my purpose to have slain thee that night. There stands the man," pointing to Philip Guarine, "to whose vigilance thou owedst thy safety." "Indeed," said De Lacy, "I do remember some indications of such a purpose; but why didst thou forego it, when following opportunities put it in thy power?" "When the slayer of my sovereign became God's soldier," answered Cadwallon, "and served his cause in Palestine, he was safe from my earthly vengeance."