s.
At the door of the refectory stood a figure whose armour flashed with
light, and his voice sounded through the closed visor--'I tell you,
March, I cannot rest till I knew what his hap has been. If he have done
this thing--'

'What then?' answered James out of the darkness, in a voice deep with
wrath; but Henry started.

'You there! you safe! Speak again! Come here that I may see. Where is
he?'

'Here, Sir King,' said James, gravely.

'Now the saints be thanked!' cried Henry, joyously. 'Where be the
caitiffs that brought me their false tale? They shall hang for it at
once.'

'It was the less wonder,' said James, still coldly, 'that they should
have thought themselves betrayed, since their king believed it of me.'

'Nay, 'twas but for a hot moment--ay, and the bitterest I ever spent.
What could I do when the villains swore that there were signals and I
know not what devices passing? I hoped yet 'twas but a plea for their
own cowardice, and was mounting to come and see for you. Come, I should
have known you better; I'd rather the whole world deceived me than have
distrusted you, Jamie.'

There was that in his tone which ended all resentment, and James's hand
was at once clasped in his, while Henry added, 'Ho, Provost-marshal! to
the gallows with these knaves!'

'Nay, Harry,' said James, 'let me plead for them. There was more than
ordinary to dismay them.'

'Dismay! ay, the more cause they should have stood like honest men. If a
rogue be not to hang for deserting his captain and then maligning him,
soon would knavery be master of all.'

'Hear me first, Hal.'

'I'll hear when I return and you are dried. Why, man, thou art an icicle
errant; change thy garments while I go round the posts, or I shall hear
nought for the chattering of thy teeth.'

'Nor I for your cough, if you go, Harry. Surely, 'tis Salisbury's
night!'

'The more cause that I be on the alert! Could I be everywhere, mayhap a
few winter blasts would not have chilled and frozen all the manhood out
of the host.'

He spoke very sharply as he threw him on his horse, and wrapped his cloak
about him--a poor defence, spite of the ermine lining, against the frost
of the December night for a man whose mother, the fair and wise Mary de
Bohun, had died in early youth from disease of the lungs.

James and the two young partners of his adventure had long been clad in
their gowns of peace, and seated by the fire in the refectory, James with