e found some others."

"Well met, my chivalrous godson," said the Constable du Guesclin,
holding out his hand. "I rejoice that my neighbour, Oliver, did not
put an end to your _faits d'armes_."

"I marvel--," Eustace hardly found words between wonder and condolence.
The Prince caught the import of his hesitating sentences.

"He thinks you a prisoner, Sir Bertrand," he said. "No, Sir Eustace,
Messire le Connetable is captive only in his good-will to you. I
wrote, to pray him to send me his witness to those last words of your
brother, since you had ever appealed to him, and he replied by an
offer, which does us too much honour, to become our guest."

"I am no scribe, apart from my fairy Dame Tiphaine," said Du Guesclin,
abruptly. "It cost me less pains to ride hither,--besides that I
longed to renew my old English acquaintances, and see justice done to
you, fair godson."

"Ha! Sir Bertrand, thou recreant!--so no other spell drew thee hither?
Thou hast no gallantry even for such an occasion as this!" said a gay
voice.

"How should the ill-favoured Knight deal in gallantries?" said Du
Guesclin, turning. "Here is one far fitter for your Grace's eyes."

"And you, discourteous Constable, were keeping him for you own behoof,
when all my maidens have been speaking for weeks of no name but the
Knight of the beleaguered Castle!"

And Eustace had to kiss the fair hand of the Princess of Wales.

In the meantime, the three boys were whispering together. "It is all
well, all gloriously well, is it not, Arthur, as I told you?" said
Edward. "I knew my father would settle all in his own noble fashion."

"What said the master of the Damoiseaux?" asked Arthur, as the sight
of that severe functionary revived certain half-forgotten terrors.

"Oh, he, the old crab-stock!" said Henry,--"he looked sour enough at
first; but Edward kept your counsel well, till you were safe at a good
distance from Bordeaux; and then, though he said somewhat of
complaining to my Lord the Prince, it was too late to mend it. And when
Sir John Chandos came back, and bade him be content, he vowed you were
enough to spoil a whole host of pages; but did not we all wish some of
our uncles would get themselves betrayed?"

"But what means all this preparation?" asked Arthur--"these lists! Oh,
surely, there is not to be a tourney, which I have so longed to see!"

"No," said Edward, "that cannot be, my mother says, while my father is
so weakly and ill