There was within him, he perceived afterwards, a conflict without
movement. It was as when two men wrestle, their limbs are locked, they
are motionless, they appear to be at rest, but in truth they are
striving with might and main.

So he remained all that night in this agony, not knowing that he did
aught but suffer; he saw the light on the wall, and heard the cocks
crow--at least he remembered these things afterwards. But his release
did not come until the morning; and of that release, and its event, and
how it came about, I will now tell you.




How Sir John went again to the cell: and of what he saw there


_Ecce audivimus eam in Ephrata: invenimus eam in campis silvae._

Behold we have heard of it in Euphrata: we have found it in the fields
of the wood.--_Ps. cxxxi. 6._


XII


It is strange to think that other men went about their business in the
palace, and knew nothing of what was passing. It is more strange that
that morning I said mass in the country and did not faint for fear or
sorrow. But it is always so, by God's loving-kindness, for no man could