flickering light, and the other half in shadow; and so, with his craving
eyes bent upon the slumbering boy, he kept his patient vigil there,
heedless of the drift of time, and softly whetted his knife, and mumbled
and chuckled; and in aspect and attitude he resembled nothing so much as
a grizzly, monstrous spider, gloating over some hapless insect that lay
bound and helpless in his web.

After a long while, the old man, who was still gazing,--yet not seeing,
his mind having settled into a dreamy abstraction,--observed, on a
sudden, that the boy's eyes were open! wide open and staring!--staring up
in frozen horror at the knife. The smile of a gratified devil crept over
the old man's face, and he said, without changing his attitude or his
occupation--

"Son of Henry the Eighth, hast thou prayed?"

The boy struggled helplessly in his bonds, and at the same time forced a
smothered sound through his closed jaws, which the hermit chose to
interpret as an affirmative answer to his question.

"Then pray again. Pray the prayer for the dying!"

A shudder shook the boy's frame, and his face blenched. Then he
struggled again to free himself--turning and twisting himself this way
and that; tugging frantically, fiercely, desperately--but uselessly--to
burst his fetters; and all the while the old ogre smiled down upon him,
and nodded his head, and placidly whetted his knife; mumbling, from time
to time, "The moments are precious, they are few and precious--pray the
prayer for the dying!"