u again.'

'Take back your sword,' said Henry. 'What folly is this? You knew that
I count not your rebel subjects as prisoners of war.'

'I did not know that I was saving a defenceless man from the flames to be
used like a dog. I never offered my arm to serve a savage tyrant.'

'Take your sword!' reiterated Henry, his passion giving way before
James's steady calmness. 'We will look into it to-morrow: but it was no
soldierly act to take advantage of my weariness, to let my commands be
broken the first day of taking the field, and bring the caitiff here. We
will leave him for the night, I say. Take up your sword.'

'Not till I am sure of my liegeman's life,' said James.

'No threats, Sir. I will make no promise,' said Henry, haughtily; but
the words died away in a racking cough.

And Bedford, laying his hand on James's arm, said, 'He is fevered and
weary. Fret him no longer, but take your sword, and get your fellow out
of the camp.'

James was too much hurt to make a compromise. 'No,' he said; 'unless
your brother freely spares the life of a man thus taken, I must be his
prisoner--but his soldier never!'

He left the tent, followed by Malcolm in an agony of despair and self-
reproach.

Henry's morning decisions were not apt to vary from his evening ones.
There was a terrible implacability about him at times, and he had never
ceased to visit his brother of Clarence's death upon the Scots, on the
plea that they were in arms against their king. Even Bedford obviously
thought that the prisoner would be safest out of his reach; and this
could hardly be accomplished, since Patrick had been placed in James's
tent, in the very centre of the camp, near the King's own. And though
Bedford and March might have connived at his being taken away, yet the
mass of the soldiery would, if they detected a Scot being smuggled away
into the town, have been persuaded that King James was acting
treacherously.

Besides, the captive himself proved to be so exhausted, that to transport
him any further in his present state would have been almost certainly
fatal. A barber surgeon from Corbeil had been fetched, and was dealing
with the injuries, which had apparently been the effect of a fall some
days previously, probably when on his way to join the French army at
Cosne; and the first fever of these hurts had no doubt been aggravated by
the adventures of the day. At any rate Patrick lay unconscious, or only
from time to time g