"Let him not slip, my lads," he said. "Bring him to Sir Oliver, on
your lives!"
The door was then opened; one of the men took Dick by either arm,
another marched ahead with a link, and the fourth, with bent bow
and the arrow on the string, brought up the rear. In this order
they proceeded through the garden, under the thick darkness of the
night and the scattering snow, and drew near to the dimly-
illuminated windows of the abbey church.
At the western portal a picket of archers stood, taking what
shelter they could find in the hollow of the arched doorways, and
all powdered with the snow; and it was not until Dick's conductors
had exchanged a word with these, that they were suffered to pass
forth and enter the nave of the sacred edifice.
The church was doubtfully lighted by the tapers upon the great
altar, and by a lamp or two that swung from the arched roof before
the private chapels of illustrious families. In the midst of the
choir the dead spy lay, his limbs piously composed, upon a bier.
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