The Prince gathered up his reins; but the old man, lurching forward,
touched his stirrup.

"How long be I to go on wi' thiccy job?"

"Until you die!"

Cethru held up his lanthorn, and they could see his long, thin face, like
a sandwich of dried leather, jerk and quiver, and his thin grey hairs
flutter in the draught of the bats' wings circling round the light.

"'Twill be main hard!" he groaned; "an' my lanthorn's nowt but a poor
thing."

With a high look, the Prince of Felicitas bent and touched the old man's
forehead.

"Until you die, old man," he repeated; and bidding his followers to light
torches from Cethru's lanthorn, he rode on down the twisting street. The
clatter of the horses' hoofs died out in the night, and the scuttling and
the rustling of the rats and the whispers of the bats' wings were heard
again.

Cethru, left alone in the dark thoroughfare, sighed heavily; then,
spitting on his hands, he tightened the old girdle round his loins, and
slinging the lanthorn on his staff, held it up to the level of his waist,
and began to make his way along the street. His progress was but slow,
for he had many times to stop and rekindle the flame within his lanthorn,
which the bats' wings, his own stumbles, and the jostlings of footpads or