But pardon me, your majesty, if I venture to remind you that you have given me your royal word not to betray our secret by a single syllable, or even by a sigh." "I gave my word, and I will keep it!" said the king.

"Go now, Earl Douglas, and do what I have bidden you!" Wholly exhausted by this paroxysm of cruel delight, the king sank back in his seat, and moaning and groaning he rubbed his leg, the piercing pains of which he had for a moment forgotten, but which now reminded him of their presence with so much the more cruel fury.
"Ah, ah!" moaned the king.

"He boasts of being able to sleep when he pleases.

Well, this time we will be the one to lull this haughty earl to sleep.

But it will be a sleep out of which he is never to awake again!" While the king thus wailed and suffered, Earl Douglas hastened with quick, firm step through the suite of royal apartments.