The Prince and the Page

CHAPTER XI-THE VIEW FROM CARMEL

"On her who knew that love can conquer death; Who, kneeling with one arm about her king, Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath, Sweet as new buds in spring."-TENNYSON.

A year had elapsed since the crusaders had landed in Palestine; Nazareth had been taken, and the Christian host were encamped upon the plain before Acre, according to their Prince's constant habit of preferring to keep his troops in the open field, rather than to expose them to the temptations of the city-which was, alas! in a state most unworthy of the last stronghold of Latin Christianity in the Holy Land.

It was on a scorching June day, Whitsun Tuesday, in the exquisite beauty of an early summer in the mountains of the Levant-when "the flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land; the fig tree putteth forth her green figs, and the vines with the tender grape give a good smell,"-that Richard de Montfort was descending the wooded sides of Mount Carmel.

Anxious tidings had of late come from England respecting the health of the little Prince John; and Princess Eleanor was desirous of offering gifts and obtaining prayers on his behalf, on the part of the good Fathers of the convent associated with the memory of the great Prophet who had raised the dead child to life. She herself, however, was at the time unfit for a mountain ride; and Prince Edward, who was a lay brother of the Carmelite order, and had fully intended himself to go and offer his devotions for his child, was so unwell on that day, from the feverish heat of the summer, that he could not expose himself to the sun; and Richard was therefore despatched on the part of the royal pair. He had ascended in the cool of the morning, setting forth before sunrise, and attending the regular Mass. The good Fathers would fain have detained him till the heat of the day should be past; but his anxiety not to overpass in the slightest degree the time fixed by the Prince, made him resolved on setting out so soon as his errand was sped.

Unspeakably beautiful was his ride-through rocky dells filled with copsewood, among which jessamine, lilies, and exquisite flowers were peeping up, and the coney, the fawn, and other animals, made Leonillo prick his ears and wistfully seek from his master's eye permission to dash off in pursuit. Or the "oaks of Carmel," with many a dark- leaved evergreen, towered in impenetrable thicket, and at an opening glade might be beheld on the north-east, "that goodly mountain Lebanon" rising in a thick clothing of wood; and beyond, in sharp cool softness, the white cone of rain-distilling Hermon. Far to the west lay the glorious glittering sheet of the Mediterranean; but nearer, almost beneath his feet, was the curving bay and harbour of Ptolemais, filled with white sails, the white city of Acre full of fortresses and towers; while on the plain beside it, green with verdure as Richard's own home greenwood of Odiham, lay the white tents of the Christian army, in so clear an atmosphere that he could see the flash of the weapons of the men on guard, and almost distinguish the blazonry of the banners.

Richard dismounted to gather some roses and jessamine for the Princess, and to collect some of the curious fossil echini, which he believed to be olives turned to stone by the Prophet Elijah, as a punishment to a churlish peasant who refused him a meal. He thought that such treasures would be a welcome addition to the store he was accumulating for the good old Grand Prior. He gave his horse to Hob Longbow, his only attendant except a young Sicilian lad. This same Longbow had stuck to him with a pertinacity that he could not shake off, and in truth had hitherto justified the Prince's prediction that he would be a brave and faithful fellow when his allegiance was no further disturbed by the proximity of the outlawed Montforts. There had been nothing to lead Richard to think he ought to indicate either him or Nick Dustifoot to the Prince as the persons who had been connected with Guy in Italy.

Presently Leonillo bounded forward, and Richard became aware of the figure of a man in light armour standing partly hidden among the brushwood, but looking down intently into the Christian camp. The dog leapt up, fawning on the stranger with demonstrations of rapture; and he, turning in haste, stood face to face with Richard.

"Here!" was his exclamation, and a grasp was instantly laid upon his sword.

"Simon!" burst from Richard's lips at the same moment, "dost not know me?"

"Thou, boy?" and the hold was relaxed. "What lucky familiar sent thee hither? What-thou art grown such a huge fellow that I had well-nigh struck thee down for Longshanks himself, had it not been for thy voice. Thou hast his very bearing."

"Simon!" again repeated Richard, in his extremity of amazement. "What dost thou? How camest thou here? Whence-?"

"That thou shalt soon see," said Simon. "A right free and merry home and company have we up yonder,"-and he pointed towards Mount Lebanon.

"Thou and Guy?"

"No, no; Guy turned craven. Could not endure our wanderings in the marshes and hills, pined for his wife forsooth, fell sick, and must needs go and give himself up to the Pope; so he sings the penitential psalms night and day."

"And we heard thou wast dead at Siena."

"Thou hearest many a false tale," said Simon. "Of my death thou shalt judge, if thou wilt turn thy horse and ride with me to our hill-fort of Ain Gebel, in Galilee. They say 'tis the very one which King David or King Herod, whichever it was, could only take by letting down his men-at-arms in boxes! I should like to see the boxes that we could not send skimming down the abyss! And a wondrous place they have left us-vaults as cool as a convent wine-cellar, fountains out of the rock, marble columns."

"But, brother, for whom do you hold it? For the King of Cyprus or- ?"

"For myself, boy! For King Simon, an it like you better! None can touch me or my merry band there, and a goodly company we are- pilgrims grown wiser, and runaway captives, and Druses, and bold Arabs too: and the choicest of many a heretic Armenian merchants' caravan is ours, and of many a Saracen village; corn and wine, fair dames, and Damascus blades, and Arab steeds. Nothing has been wanting to me but thee and vengeance, and both are, I hope, on the way!"

"Not I, certainly!" said Richard, shrinking back in horror: "I-a sworn crusader!"

"Tush, what are we but crusaders too, boy? 'Tis all service against the Moslem! Thy patron saint sent thee to me to-day from special care for thy safety."

"How so!" exclaimed Richard. "If peril threaten my Lord, I must be with him at once."

"Much hast thou gained by hanging on upon him," said Simon scornfully, glancing at Richard's heels; "not so much as a pair of gilt spurs! Creeping after him like a hound, thou hast not even the bones!"

"I have all I seek," said Richard. "I have his brotherly kindness. I have the opportunity of redeeming my name. Nay, I should even regret any honour that took me from the services I now perform. Simon, didst thou but know his love for our father!"

"Silence, base caitiff!" thundered Simon; "I know his deeds, and that is enough for me! Look here, mean-spirited as thou wert to be taken with his hypocrisy, I have pity on thee yet. I would spare thee what awaits thee in the camp!"

"For heaven's sake, Simon, dost know of any attack of the Emir? The Princess must at once be conveyed into the town! As thou art a man, a Christian, speak plainly!"

"Foolish lad, the infidels are quiet enough! No peril threatens the camp! Only if thou wilt run thy head into it, thou art like to find it too hot to hold thee!"

"I am afraid of no accusations," said Richard; "my Lord knows and trusts me."

Simon laughed a loud ringing scornful laugh.

"Wilful will to water," he said. "Well, thou besotted lad, if it be not too late when thou getst into the hands of Crookbacked Edmund and Red Gilbert, remember the way to Galilee, that is all!"

"I tell thee, Simon," said Richard, turning round and fully facing him; "I would rather perish an innocent man by the hands of the Provost Marshal, than darken my soul with thy counsels of blood. O Simon! What thy purpose may be I know not; but canst thou deem it faithfulness to our father, saint as he was, to live this dark wild life, so utterly abhorrent to him?"

"Let those look to that who slew him, and made me such as I am," returned Simon, turning from him, and gazing steadfastly down into the camp. Suddenly a gleam of fierce exultation lighted up his face, and again facing Richard he exclaimed, "Yes, go home, tame cringing spaniel, and see whether a Montfort is still in favour below there! See if proud Edward is still ready to meet thy fawning with his scornful patronage! See if the honour of a murdered father has not been left in better hands than thine! And when thou hast had thy lesson, find the way to Ain Gebel, or ask Nick Dustifoot."

Richard, with a startled exclamation, looked down, but could discern nothing unusual in the camp. The royal banner hung in heavy folds over the Prince's pavilions, and all was evidently still in the same noontide repose, or rather exhaustion, to which the Syrian sun reduced even the hardy active Englishmen. "What mean you?" he began; but Simon was no longer beside him. He called, but echo alone answered; and all he could do was to throw himself on his horse, and hurry down the mountain side, with a vague presentiment of evil, and a burning desire to warn his lord or share his peril.

He understood Simon's position. Many of the almost inaccessible rocks, where the sons of Anak had built their Cyclopean fortresses, and which had been abodes of almost fabulous beauty and strength in the Herodian days, had been resorted to again by the crusaders, and had served as isolated strongholds whence to annoy the enemy. Frightfully lawless had, in too many instances, been the life there led, more especially by the Levant-born sons of Europeans; and in the universal disorganization of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, that took place in consequence of the disputed rights of Cyprus and Hohenstaufen, most of them had become free from all control. If the garrisons bore the Christian name at all, it chiefly was as an excuse for preying on all around; but too often they were renegades of every variety of nation, drawn together by the vilest passions, commanded by some reckless adventurer, and paying a species of allegiance to any power that either endangered them, or afforded them the hopes of plunder. Bloodthirsty and voluptuous alike, they were viewed with equal terror by the Frank pilgrim, the Syriac villager, the Armenian merchant, and the Saracen hadji-whose ransom and whose spoil enriched their chambers, with all that the licentious tastes of East and West united could desire. There were comparatively few of these nests of iniquity in these latter days of the Crusades, but some still survived; and Richard had seen some of their captains with their followers at the siege of Nazareth, where the atrocities they had committed had been such as to make the English army stand aghast. As a member of such a crew, Simon could hardly fail to find means of attempting that revenge on which it was but too evident that he was still bent; and Richard, as every possible risk rose before him, urged his horse to perilous speed down the steep descent, and chid every obstacle, though in fact the descent which ordinarily occupied two hours, for men who cared for their own necks, was effected by him in a quarter of the time. He came to the entrenched camp. The entrance, where the Prince made so strict a point of keeping a sentinel, was completely unguarded. The foremost tents were empty, but there was a sound as of the murmuring voices of numbers towards the centre of the camp. The next moment he met Hamlyn de Valence riding quickly, and followed by two attendants.

"Hamlyn! a moment!" he gasped. "Has aught befallen the Prince?"

"You were aware of it, then!" said Hamlyn, checking his horse, and looking him full in the face.

"Answer me, for Heaven's sake! Is all well with the Princes?"

"As well as your house desires-or it may be somewhat better," said Hamlyn; "but let me pass. I am on an errand of life or death."

So saying, Hamlyn dashed forwards; and Richard, in double alarm, made his way to the space in the centre of the camp, where he found himself on the outskirts of a crowd, talking in the various tongues of English, French, and Lingua Franca. "He lives-the good Princess- -the dogs of infidels-poison-" were the words he caught. He flung himself from his horse, and was about to interrogate the nearest man, when John of Dunster came hurrying towards him from the tents, and threw himself upon him, sobbing with agitation and dismay.

"What is it? Speak, John! The Prince!"

"Oh, if you had but been there! It will not cease bleeding. O Richard, he looks worse than my father when he came home!"

"Let me hear! Where? How is he hurt?"

"In the arm and brow," said the boy.

"The arm!" said Richard, much relieved.

"Ah, but they say the dagger is poisoned! Stay, Richard, I'll tell you all. Dame Idonea turned me out of the tent, and she will not let any one in. It was thus-even now the Prince was lying on the day- bed in his own outer tent, no one else there save myself. I believe everybody was asleep, I know I was-when Nick Dustifoot called me, and bade me tell the Prince there was a messenger from the Emir of Joppa, asking to see him. So the Prince roused himself up, and bade him come in. He was one of those quick-eyed Moorish-looking infidels, in the big turbans and great goat's hair cloaks; and he went down on his knees, and hit the ground with his forehead, and said Salam aleikum-traitor that he was-and gave the Prince a letter. Well, the Prince muttered something about his head aching so sorely that he could scarce see the writing, and had just put up his hand to shade his eyes from the light, when the dog was out with a dagger and fell on him! The Prince's arm being raised, caught the stroke, you see; and that moment his foot was up," said John, acting the kick, "and down went the rogue upon his back! And I-I threw myself right down over him!"

"Did you, my brave little fellow? Well done of you!" cried Richard.

"And the Prince wrested the dagger out of the rogue's hand, only he tore his own forehead sorely, as the point flew up with the shock- and then stabbed the villain to the heart-see how the blood rushed over me! Then the Prince pulled me up, and called me a brave lad, and set me on my feet, and asked me if I were sure I was not hurt. And by that time the archers were coming in, when all was over; and Long Robin must needs snatch up a joint stool and have a stroke at the Moor's head. I trow the Prince was wrath with the cowardly clown for striking a dead man. He said I alone had been any aid!"

"'Well?" anxiously asked Richard, gathering intense alarm as he saw that the boy's trouble still exceeded his elation, even at such commendation as this.

"But then," said John sadly, "even while he called it nothing, there came a dizziness over him. And even then the Princess had heard the outcry, and came in haste with Dame Idonea. And so soon as the Dame had picked up the dagger and looked well at it, and smelt it, she said there was poison on it. No sooner did the Princess hear that, than, without one word, she put her lips to his arm to suck forth the venom. He was for withholding her, but the Dame said that was the only safeguard for his life; and she looked-oh, so imploring!"

"Blessings on the sweet Princess and true wife!" cried the men-at- arms, great numbers of whom had gathered round the little eye-witness to hear his account.

"And so is he saved?" said Richard, with a long breath.

"Ah! but," said John, his eyes beginning to fill with tears, "there is the Grand Master of the Templars come now, and he says that to suck the poison is of no avail; and that nothing will save him but cutting away the living flesh as I would carve the wing of a bustard; and Dame Idonea says that is just the way King Coeur de Lion died, and the Princess is weeping, and the wound will not stop bleeding; and Hamlyn is gone to Acre for a surgeon, and they are all wrangling, and Dame Idonea boxed my ears at last, and said I was gaping there." The boy absolutely burst into sobs and tears, and at the same moment a growl arose among the archers, of "Curses on the Moslem hounds! Not one shall escape! Death to every captive in our hands!"

"Nay, nay," exclaimed Richard, looking up in horror; "the poor captives are utterly guiltless! Far more justly make me suffer," murmured he sadly.

"All tarred with the same stick," said the nearest; "serve them as they deserve."

"Think," added Richard, "if the Prince would see no dishonour done to the dead carcase of the murderer himself, would he be willing to have ill worked on living men, sackless of the wrong? English turning butchers-that were fit work for Paynims."

"No, no, not one shall live to laugh at our Edward's fall," burst out the men; and a voice among them added, "Sure the young squire seems to know a vast deal about the guilty and the guiltless-the Montfort! Ay! Away with all foes to our Edward-"

"Best withdraw yourself, Sir," said Hob Longbow; "their blood is up. Baulk them of their prey, and they will set on you next."

Richard just then beheld a person from whose interposition he had much greater hopes, namely the Earl of Gloucester, who, though still a young man, was the chief English noble in the camp, and whose special charge the Saracen captives were. He hurried towards him, and asked tidings of the Prince.

"Ill tidings, I trow," said the Earl, bitterly. "Ay, Richard de Montfort, you had best take heed to yourself, he was your best friend; and a sore lookout it is for us all. Between the old dotard his father and the poor babes his children, England is in woeful plight. Would that your father's wits were among us still! There's some curse on this fools' errand of a Crusade, for here is the sixth prince it hath slain, and well if we lose not our Princess too. But what is all this uproar!"

"The men-at-arms, my Lord," said Richard, "fierce to visit the crime on the captives."

"A good riddance!" said Earl Gilbert; "the miscreants eat as much as ten score yeomen, and my knaves are weary with guarding them. If this matter brings all the pagans in Palestine on our hands, we shall have enough to do without looking after this nest of heathens."

"But would the Prince have it so?"

"I fear me the Prince is like to have little will in the matter! No, no, I'm not the man to order a butchery, but if the honest fellows must needs shed blood for blood, I'm not going to meddle between them and the heathen wolves."

Assuredly nothing was to be done with the Red de Clare, and Richard pushed on, with throbbing dismayed heart, to the tent, dreading to behold the condition of him whom he best loved and honoured on earth. The tent was crowded, but Richard's unusual height enabled him to see, over the heads of those nearest, that Edward was sitting on the edge of his couch, his wife and Dame Idonea endeavouring to check the flow of blood from his wound. The elbow of his other arm was on his knee, and his head on his hand, but the opening of the curtain let in the light; he looked up, and Richard saw how deathly white his face had become, and the streaks of blood from the scratch upon his brow. He greeted Richard, however, with the look of recognition to which his young squire had now become used-not exactly a smile, but a well-satisfied welcome; and though he spoke low and feebly to his brother who stood near him, Richard caught the words with a thrill of emotion.

"Let him near me, Edmund. He hath a ready hand, and may aid thee, sweet wife. Thou art wearying thyself." Then, as Richard approached, "Thou hast sped well! I looked not for thee so soon."

"Alack, my Lord!" said Richard, "I hurried on to warn you. Ah! would I had been in time!"

"Thy little pupil, John, did all man could do," said Edward, languidly smiling. "But what-hast aught in charge to say to me? Be brief, for I am strangely dizzy."

"My Lord," said Richard, "the archers and men-at-arms are furiously wrath with the Saracens. They would wreak their vengeance on the prisoners, who at least are guiltless!"

"The knaves!" exclaimed Edward promptly. "Why looks not Gloucester to this?"

"My Lord, the Earl saith that he would not command the slaughter, but that he will not forbid it."

"Saints and angels!" burst forth the Prince, and to the amazement of all, he started at once on his feet, and striding through the bystanders to the opening of the tent, he looked out on the crowd, who were already rushing towards the inclosure where their victims were penned. Raising his mighty voice as in a battle-day, he called aloud to them to halt, turn back, and hear him. They turned, and beheld the lofty form in the entrance of the tent, wrapped in a long loose robe, which, as well as his hair, was profusely stained with blood, his wan face, however, making that marble dignity and sternness of his even more awful and majestic as he spoke aloud. "So, men, you would have me go down to my grave blood-stained and accursed by the death of guiltless captives? And I pray you, what is to be the lot of our countrymen, now on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, if you thus deal with our prisoners, taken in war? Senseless bloody- minded hounds that ye are, mark my words. The life of one of you for the life of a Saracen captive; and should I die, I lay my curse on ye all, if every man of them be not set free the hour my last breath is drawn. Do you hear me, ye cravens?"

Unsparing, unconciliatory as ever, even when most merciful and generous, Edward turned, but reeled as he re-entered the tent, and his dizziness recurring, needed the support of both his brother and Richard to lay him down on the couch.

The Grand Master of the Temple renewed his assurance that this was a token of the poison, and Eleanor was unheeded when she declared that her dear lord had been affected in the same manner before his wound, ever since indeed the Whit Sunday when he had ridden home from the great Church of St. John of Acre in the full heat of the sun.

Dame Idonea was muttering the mediaeval equivalent for fiddlesticks, as plain as her respect for the Temple would allow her.

At that moment the leech whom Hamlyn had been sent into the town to summon, made his appearance, and fully confirmed the Templar's opinion. Neither the wizened Greek physician, nor the dignified Templar, considered the soft but piteous assurance of the wife that the venom had at once been removed by her own lips as more than mere feminine folly, and Dame Idonea's real experience of knights thus saved, and on the other hand of the fatal consequences of rude surgery in such a climate, were disregarded as an old woman's babble. Her voice waxed shrill and angry, and her antagonists' replies in Lingua Franca, mixed with Arabic, Latin, and Greek, rang through the tent, till the Prince could bear it no longer.

"Peace," he said, with an asperity unlike his usual stern patience, "I had liefer brook your knives than your tongues! Without further jangling, tell me clearly, learned physician, the peril of either submitting or not submitting to your steel."

The Greek told, with as little tergiversation as was in his nature, that he viewed a refusal as certain death, but several times Dame Idonea was bursting out upon him, and Edward had to hold up his finger to silence her.

"Now, kind lady," quoth he, "let me hear the worst you foretell for me from your experience."

Dame Idonea did not spare him either the fate of Coeur de Lion, the dangers of fever and pain, and above all "of that strange enchantment that binds the teeth together and forbids a man to swallow his food." Poor Eleanor looked at him imploringly all the time, but as none of them had ever heard of the circulation of the blood, they could not tell that her simple remedy had been truly efficacious, and that if it had been otherwise the incisions would now come too late. Thus the balance of prudence made itself appear to be on the side of the physician, and for him the Prince decided. "Mi Dona," he said, ever his most caressing term for her, "it must be so! I think not lightly of what thou hast done for me, but, as matters stand, too much hangs upon this life of mine for me not to be bound to run no needless risk for fear of a little pain. If I live and speak now, next to highest Heaven it is owing to thee; and when we came on this holy war, sweet Eleanor, didst thou not promise to hinder me from naught that a true warrior of the Cross ought to undergo? And is this the land to shrink from the Cross?"

Alas! to Eleanor the pang was the belief in the uselessness of his suffering and danger. She never withstood his will, but physically she was weak, and her weeping was piteous in its silence. Edward bade his brother lead her away; and Edmund, after the usual fashion, vented his own perplexity and distress upon the most submissive person in his way. He assumed more resistance on the part of his gentle sister-in-law than she made, and carrying her from the tent, roughly told her, silent as she was, that it was better that she should scream and cry than all England wail and lament.

And so Eleanor's devoted deed, the true saving of her husband, has lived on as a mere delusive tradition, weakly credited by the romantic, while the credit of his recovery has been retained by the Knight-Templars' leech. Not a sound was uttered by the Prince while under those hands; but when his wife was permitted to return to him, she found him in a dead faint, and the silver reliquary she had left with him crushed flat and limp between his fingers.

Richard had given his attendance all the time, and for several hours afterwards, during which the Princess hung over her husband, endeavouring to restore him from the state of exhaustion in which he scarcely seemed conscious of anything but her presence. Late in the evening, some one came to the entrance of the tent, and beckoned to the young squire; he came out expecting to receive some message, but to his extreme surprise found himself in the grasp of the Provost Marshal.

"On what charge?" he demanded, so soon as he was far enough beyond the precincts of his tent not to risk a disturbance.

"By the command of the council. On the charge of being privy to the attempt on the Prince's life."

"By whom preferred?" asked Richard.

"By the Lord Hamlyn de Valence."

Richard attempted not another word. In effect the condition of the Prince seemed to him so hopeless that his most acute suffering at the moment was in the being prevented from ministering to him, or watching for a last word or look of recognition. He had no heart for self-vindication, even if he had not known its utter futility with men who had been prejudiced against him from the outset. Nor had he the opportunity, for the Provost Marshal conducted him at once to the tent where he was to be in ward for the night, a heap of straw for him to lie upon, and a guard of half a dozen archers outside; and there was he left to his despairing prayers for the Prince's life. He could dwell on nothing else, there was no room in his mind for any thought but of that glory of manhood thus laid low, and of the anguish of the sweet face of the Princess.

"Sir-!" there was a low murmur near him-"now is the time. I have brought an archer's gown and barrett, and we may easily get past the yeomen." These last words were uttered, as on hands and knees a figure whose dark outline could barely be discerned, crept under the border of the tent.

"Who art thou?" hastily inquired Richard.

"You should know me, Sir,-I have done you many a good turn, and served your house truly."

"Talk not of truth, thou traitor," said Richard, recognizing Dustifoot's voice. "Knowst thou that but for the Prince's clemency thou hadst a year ago been out of the reach of the cruel evil thou hast now shared in."

"Nay, now, Lord Richard," returned the man, "you should not treat thus an honest fellow that would fain do you service."

"I need no service such as thine," returned Richard. "Thy service has made my brothers murderers, and brought ruin and woe unspeakable upon the land."

"Beshrew me," muttered the man, "but one would have thought the young damoiseau would have had more feeling about his father's death! But I swore to do Sir Simon's bidding, so that is no concern of mine; and he bade me, if any one strove to lay hands on you, Sir, to lead you down to Kishon Brook, where he will meet us with a plump of spears."

"Meet him then," said Richard, "and say to him that if from his crag above, on Carmel, he sees me hung on the gallows tree as a traitor, he may count that I am willingly offered for our family sin! Ay, and that if he thinks an old man's hairs brought down to the grave, a broken-hearted wife, helpless orphans, and a land without a head, to be a grateful offering to my father, let him enjoy the thought of how the righteous Earl would have viewed all the desolation that will fall on England without the one-one scholar who knew how to value and honour his lessons."

"Hush! Sir," hastily interposed Dustifoot; but it was too late, the murmur of voices had already been caught by the guard, and quick as he was to retreat, their torches discovered him as he was creeping out, and he was dragged back by the feet, and the light held up to his face, while many voices proclaimed him as the rogue who had been foremost in admitting the assassin to the royal tent. It was from the tumult of voices that Richard first understood that on examining the body of the murderer, it had been ascertained that he was neither a Bedouin nor one of the assassins belonging to the Old Man of the Mountain, but an European, probably a Provencal; and this, added to Hamlyn's representation of Richard's words, together with what the Earls of Lancaster and Gloucester recollected, had directed the suspicion upon himself. And here was, as it seemed, undeniable evidence of his connection with the plot!

The miserable Dustifoot, vainly imploring his intercession, was tied hand and foot, and the guard returned to the outside of the tent, except one archer, who thought it needful to bring in his torch, and keep the prisoners in sight.

The night passed wearily, and with morning Dustifoot was removed to a place of captivity more befitting his degree; but of the Prince, Richard only heard that he continued to be in great danger. No attempt on the part of the council was made to examine their prisoner; and Richard suspected, as time wore on, that no one chose to act in this time of suspense for fear of incurring the lion-like wrath of Edward in the event of his recovery, but that in case of his death, small would be his own chances of life. Death had fewer horrors for the lonely boy than it would have had for one with whom life had been brighter. In battle for the Cross, or in shielding his Prince's life, it would have been welcome, but death, branded with vile ingratitude, as a traitor to that master, was abhorrent. Shrunk up in the corner of the tent, half asleep after the night's vigil, yet too miserable for the entire oblivion of rest, Richard spent the day in dull despair, listening for sounds without with an intensity of attention that seemed to pervade every limb, and yet with snatches of sleep that brought dreams more intolerable than the reality which they yet seemed to enhance.

At last, however, the sultry closeness of the day subsided, the Angelus bell sounded far off from the churches and convents of Acre, and near from the chapel tent, and the devotions that it proclaimed were not ended when Richard heard the cry of the crusading watch- "Remember the Holy Sepulchre."

Yes, the Holy Sepulchre might not be recovered and reached by the English army, but it might still be remembered, and therein be laid down all struggles of the will, all rebellious agony, at the being misunderstood, misused, vituperated, all suffering might there be offered up; nor could the most ignominious death stand between him and the thought of that Holy Tomb, and of the joy beyond.-Son of a man who, sorely tried, had drawn his sword against his king, brother of wilful murderers, perhaps to die innocent was the best fate he could hope; and in accordance with the doctrine of his time, he hoped that his death might serve as a part of a sacrifice for the family guilt. Nay, the Prince gone, wherefore should he wish to live?

"Don't you see? The Prince's signet! He said I should bring him! Clown that thou art, hast no eyes nor ears? What, don't you know me? I am the young lord of Dunster, the Prince's foot-page. It is his command."

And amid some perplexed mutterings from the guard, little John of Dunster burst into the tent. "Up, up," he cried, "you are to come to the Prince instantly."

"How fares he?"-Richard's one question of the day.

"Sorely ill at ease," said the boy, "but he wants you, he calls for you, and no one would tell him where you were, so I spoke out at last, and he bade me take his ring and bring you, for 'tis his pleasure. Come now, for the Earl of Lancaster and Hamlyn are gone to take the Princess to Acre, and my Lord of Gloucester has taken his red head off to sleep, and no one is there but old Raymond and some of the grooms.

"The Princess gone!"

"Ay, and Dame Idonea with her. So we shall hear no more of King Coeur de Lion. Hamlyn swears she was on his crusade. Do you think she was, Richard? nobody knows how old she is."

Richard was a great deal too anxious to ask questions himself, to be able to answer this query. And as the yeomen let him pass them, only begging him to bear him out with the Princes, he hastily gathered from the boy all that he could tell. The Prince had, it appeared, been in a most suffering state from pain and fever all the night and the ensuing day, and had hardly noticed any one but his devoted wife, who had attended him unremittingly, until with the cooler air of evening she saw him slightly revived, but was herself so completely spent, and so unwell, as to be incapable of opposing his decision that she should at once be carried into the city to receive the succours her state demanded. When she was gone, Edward, who had perhaps sought to spare her the sight of his last agony, had roused himself to make his will, and choose protectors for his father and young children; and it was after this that his inquiries became urgent for Richard de Montfort. He was at length answered by the indignant little foot-page; and greatly resenting the action of the council, he had, as John said, "frowned and spoken like himself," and sent the little fellow in quest of the young esquire.

The tent was nearly dark, and Richard could only see the outline of the tall form laid prostrate, but the voice he had feared never to hear again, spoke, though slowly and wearily, and a hand was held out. "Welcome, cousin," he said. "Poor boy, they must needs have at thee ere the breath was out of my body; but for that, at least, they shall wait, and longer if my word and will can avail after I am gone. What has given them occasion against thee, Richard?"

"Alas! my Lord, you are too ill at ease to vex yourself with my matters."

"Nay, but I must see thee righted, Richard; there are services for thee to do to me. Hark thee! I have bequeathed thee thy mother's lands at Odiham, which my father gave to me. So mayest thou do for Henry whate'er he will brook," he added, with a languid smile, holding Richard's hand in such a manner as to impress that though his words came very tardily, he did not mean to be interrupted. "Methinks Henry will not grudge a kindly thought and a few prayers for his old comrade. And, Richard, strive to be near my poor boys; strive that they be bred in strict self-rule, and let them hear of the purposes thy father left to me: I think thou knowst them or canst divine them better than any other near me. Thou SHALL be with them if-if Heaven and the blessed Saints bear my sweet wife through this trouble. She will love and trust thee."

Edward's voice broke down in a half-strangled sob between grief and pain; he could not contemplate the thought of his wife, and weakness had broken down much of his power over himself. He did not speak at once, or invite an answer; and when he did, his words were an exclamation of despairing weariness at the trumpet of a gnat that hovered above him.

Richard presently understood that the thin goats' hair curtains which even the crusaders had learnt to adopt from their Oriental neighbours as protections against these enemies, being continually disarranged to give the Prince drink or to put cool applications to his wound, the winged foes were sure to enter, and with their exasperating hum further destroy all chance of rest. The Prince had not slept since he had been wounded, and was well-nigh distraught with wakefulness, and with the continual suffering, which was only diminished at the first moment that a cold lotion touched his arm. The Hospitaliers had sent in some ice from Mount Hermon, but no one knew how to apply it, and even Dame Idonea had despised it.

Fortunately, however, Richard had spent a few weeks on his first arrival in the infirmary of the Knights of St. John, and before his recovery had become familiar with their treatment of both ice and mosquito curtains; and when Edmund of Lancaster came into the tent cautiously in early dawn, he could hardly credit his eyes, for the squire whom he believed to be in close custody was beside his brother, holding the cold applications on the arm, and it was impossible to utter inquiry or remonstrance, for the Prince was in the profoundest, most tranquil slumber.

Nor did he awake till the camp was astir in the morning with the activity that in this summer time could only be exerted before the sun had come to his full strength. Then, when at length he opened his eyes, he pronounced himself to be greatly refreshed; and the physician at the same time found the state of the wound greatly improved. A cheerful answer was returned by the patient to the message of anxious inquiry sent from his Princess at Acre and then looking up kindly at Richard, he said, "Boy, if my wife saved my life once, I think thou hast saved it a second time."

"Brother!" here broke in the Earl of Lancaster, "I would not grieve you, but for your own safety you ought to know of the grave suspicion that has fallen on this youth."

"I know that you all have suspected him from the first, Edmund," returned the Prince coolly, "but I little expected that the first hour of my sickness would be spent in slaking your hatred of him."

"You do not know the reasons, brother," said Edmund, confused; "nor are you in a state to hear them."

"Wherefore not?" said Edward. "Thanks to him, I have my wits clear and cool, and ere the day is older his cause shall be heard. Fetch Gloucester, fetch the rest of the council, and let me hear your witnesses against him! What! do you think I could rest or amend while I know not whether I have a traitor or not beside me?"

There could be no doubt that Edward was fully himself after his night's rest, determined and prompt as ever. No one durst withstand him, and Edmund went to take measures for his being obeyed. Meantime, the Prince grasped Richard by the wrist, and looking him through with the keen blue eyes that seemed capable of piercing any disguise, he said, "Boy, hast thou aught that thou wouldst tell to thy kinsman Edward in this strait, that thou couldst not say to the Prince in council?"

"Sir," said Richard, with choking voice, "I was on my way to give that very warning, when I found that the blow had fallen. My Lord," he added, lowering his tone, as he knelt by the Prince's couch, "Simon lives; I met him on Mount Carmel."

"I thought so," muttered the Prince. "And this is his work?"

Richard hurriedly told the circumstances of the encounter, a matter on which he had the less scruple as Simon was entirely out of reach. He had hardly completed his narration when Prince Edmund returned, and with him came others of the council. Edmund was followed by his squire, Hamlyn; and some of the archers were left without. Richard had told his tale, but had had no assurance of how the Prince would act upon it, nor how far the brand of shame might be made to rest on him and his unhappy house. He had avowed his brother's guilt to the Prince; alas! must it again be blazoned through the camp?

The greetings and inquiries of the new arrivals were hastily got over by the Prince, who lay-holding truly a bed of justice-partly raised by his cushions, with bloodless cheeks indeed, but with flashing eyes, and lips set to all their wonted resoluteness.

"Let me hear, my Lords," he said, "wherefore-so soon as I was disabled-you thought it meet to put mine own body squire and kinsman in ward?"

"Sir," said the Provost Marshal, "these knaves of mine have let an accomplice escape who peradventure might have been made to tell more."

"An accomplice? Of whom?" demanded the Prince.

"Of the-the assassin, my Lord, on whom your own strong hand inflicted chastisement. This Dustifoot, who was the yeoman on guard by your tent, and introduced him to your presence, was seized by the villains at night, endeavouring to hold converse with this gentleman, and was by them taken into custody, whence, I grieve to say, he hath escaped."

"Give his guard due punishment!" said Edward shortly. "But how concerns this the Lord Richard de Montfort's durance?"

"Sir," added the Earl of Gloucester, "is it known to you that the dog of a murderer was yet no Moslem?"

"What of that?" sharply demanded Edward.

"There can scarcely be a doubt," continued the red-haired Earl, "that an attempt on your life, my Lord, could only come from one quarter."

"Oh," dryly replied Edward, "good cause for you to be willing that the Saracen captives should be massacred."

"Sir, I did not then know that the miscreant was not of their faith," said Gloucester. "I now believe that the same revenge that caused the death of Lord Henry of Almayne has now nearly quenched the hope of England, that if you will not be warned, my Lord, worse evil may yet betide."

Gloucester spoke with much feeling, but Edward did not show himself touched; he only said, "All this may be very well, but my question is not answered-Why was my squire put in ward?"

"Speak, Hamlyn," said Edmund of Lancaster; "say to the Prince what thou didst tell me."

Hamlyn stood forth, excusing himself for the painful task of accusing his kinsman, but seeing the Prince's impatient frown, he came to the point, and declared that Richard de Montfort, on meeting him speeding to Acre, had eagerly asked him if aught had befallen the Prince, and had looked startled and confused on being taxed with being aware of what had taken place.

"Well!" said Edward.

Gloucester next beckoned a yeoman forward, who, much confused under the Prince's keen eye, stammered out that he did not wish to harm the young gentleman, but that he had seemed mighty anxious to spare the Pagan hounds of prisoners, and had even been heard to say that their revenge would better fall on himself.

"And is this all for which you had laid hands on him?" said the Prince, looking from one to the other.

"Nay, brother," said Edmund. "It might have been unmarked by thee, but in the first hour myself and others heard him speak of having made speed to warn thee, but finding it too late. Therefore did we conclude that it were well to have him in ward, lest, as in the former unhappy matter, he should have been conversant with traitors, and thus that we might obtain intelligence from him. Remember likewise the fellow who was found in the tent."

"So!" said Edward, "an honourable youth hath been treated as a traitor, because of another springald's opinion of his looks, and because a few yeomen thought he seemed over-anxious to save a few wretched captives, whom they knew to be guiltless. Will there ever come a time when Englishmen will learn what IS witness?"

"His name and lineage, brother," began Edmund.

"That, gentles, is the witness upon which the wolf slew the lamb for fouling the stream."

"Then you will not examine him?" asked Gloucester.

"Not as a suspected felon," said Edward. "One who by your own evidence was heedless of himself in seeking to save the helpless- nay, who spake of hasting to warn me-scarce merits such usage. What consorts with his honour and my safety, I can trust to him to tell me as true friend and liegeman!" and the confiding smile with which he looked at Richard was like a sunbeam in a dark cloud.

"My Lord Prince," objected Gloucester, "we cannot think that this is for your safety."

"See here, Gloucester," said Edward. "Till my arm can keep my head again, double the guards, and search all envoys, under whatever pretext they may enter; but never for the rest of thy life brand a man with imprisonment till you have reasonable proof against him. Thanks for your care of me, my Lords, but I can scarce yet brook long converse. The council is dismissed."

Richard, infinitely relieved, could hardly wait till he could safely speak to the Prince to express his gratitude and joy that he had been not only defended, but freed from all examination, so as to have been spared from denouncing his brother, and that the family had been spared from this additional stigma. Edward, who like all reserved men could not endure the expression of thanks, even while their utter omission would have been wounding, cut him short.

"Tush, boy, Simon is as much my cousin as thy brother, and I would not help to throw fresh stains on the name that, but for my father's selfish counsellors, would stand highest at home! Besides," he added, as one half ashamed of his generosity and willing to qualify it, "supposing it got abroad that he had aimed this stroke at the heir of England-why, then England's honour would be concerned, and we should have stout Gilbert de Clare and all the rest of them wild to storm Simon in his Galilean fastness, without King Herod's boxes, I trow. Then would all the Druses, and the Maronites, and the Saracens, and the half-breeds, the worst of the whole, come down on them in some impassable gorge, and the troops I have taken such pains to keep in health and training would leave their bones in those doleful passes; and not for the sake of the Holy Sepulchre, but of my private quarrel. No, no, Richard, we will keep our own counsel, and do our best that Simon may not get another chance, before I can move within the walls of Acre; and then we will spread our sails, and pray that the Holy Land may make a holier man of him."