"My lord and the rest desire to come in, my son," I said. "If they may
come, press my hand."
He pressed my hand, and I spoke in a low voice, bidding them to come in.
So they came in noiselessly, one after another; I could see their faces
moving, but no more--my lord cardinal and the great nobles and the
grooms and the rest--till the room was half full of them.
The door was put to behind them, but I could see the line of light that
shewed it, where the candle burned in the parlour beyond; and I could
hear the sound of their breathing and the rustle once and again of their
feet upon the rushes.
Then I knelt down, when the others had knelt, and waited for the agony
to begin, when I should begin the last commendation.
My children, I have prayed by many death-beds, but I have never seen one
like this.
The curtains were wide, and the windows, behind me, that he might have
breath to send out his spirit; and without, as I saw when I turned to
kneel, the heavens were bright with stars. This was all the light that
was in the room; it was no more than dark twilight, and I could see no
more of him than what I saw before, the glimmer of his face upon the
pillow and his long hair beside it. His fingers were in mine, but they
were very cold by now.
But he had said that there would be light enough, and so there was.
It may have been half an hour afterwards that the room began to lighten
softly, as the sky brightened at moonrise, and I could see a little more
plainly. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be breathing very softly
through his lips.
Then the moon rose, and the light lay upon the floor at my side. Then a
little after it was upon the fringes of the coverlet, and it crept up
moment by moment across the leopards and lilies that were broidered in
gold and blue.
At last it lay half across the bed, and I could see the King's face very
pale and melancholy upon the other side, and Master Blytchett a little
behind him.
And presently it reached Master Richard's hand and my own that lay
together, but my arm was so numbed that I could feel nothing in it; I
could see only that his fingers were in mine.
So the light crept up his arm to the shoulder, and when it reached his
face we saw that he was gone to his reward.