Page:Weird Tales Volume 10 Number 4 (1927-10).djvu/69





IL COUTEAU sat in the warm sunlight of the courtyard industriously polishing his long, straight sword. It was a good sword, he ruminated, scraping industriously at the dark stain which insisted on sticking in the crevices of the scrollwork hilt, hut it was becoming thirsty from lack of use. His superstitious eye seemed to detect some subtle lessening of the keenness of the edge; some slight dullness in the polish of the blade since he had used it almost daily against the cursed Saracens in Palestine.

With the sword across his knees he leaned back against the wall and relaxed into sleepy comfort. It was good, he decided, to be done with wars, and with slicing heads from infidels; it was good to be in Merrie England, where nothing much had happened since his arrival; it was good to have the stout walls of Castle Randall about him, and a real bed to sleep on once more.

With half-closed eyes he watched the golden flash of flies across the sunlight and listened to the hum of wasps who had their nest somewhere up the tower. Two grooms were asleep against the stable wall. Two