at the bottom of a skin. Walter shouted to
call them to order, but they paid little heed.

"Do not meddle and make, young sir," said a low-browed, swarthy
fellow. "There's plenty of cool drink of the right sort out there."

"Traitor!" cried Walter; "better die than yield."

"If one have no mind for dying like an old crab in a rock," said the
man.

"They would think nought of making an end of us out there," said
another.

"I'd as lief be choked at once by a cord as by thirst," was the
answer.

"That you are like to be, if you talk such treason," threatened
Walter. "Seize him, Richard--Martin."

Richard and Martin, however, hung back, one muttering that Gil had
done nothing, and the other that he might be in the right of it; and
when Walter burst out in angry threats he was answered in a gruff
voice that he had better take care what he said, "There was no
standing not only wasting with thirst and hunger, but besides being
blustered at by a hot-headed lad, that scarce knew a hauberk from a
helmet."

Walter, in his rage, threw himself with drawn sword on the mutineer,
but was seized and dragged back by half a dozen stalwart arms, such
as he had no power to resist, and he was held fast amid rude laughs
and brutal questions whether he should thus be carried to the
Saracens, and his sister with him.

"The old Sheik would give a round sum for a fair young damsel like
her!" were the words that maddened her brother into a desperate
struggle, baffled with a hoarse laugh by the men-at-arms, who were
keeping him down, hand and foot, when a new voice sounded: "How
now, fellows! What's this?"

In one moment Walter was released and on his feet, and the men fell
back, ashamed and gloomy, as a sturdy figure, with sun-browned face,
light locks worn away by the helmet, and slightly grizzled, stood
among them, in a much-rubbed and soiled chamois leather garment.

Walter broke out into passionate exclamations; the men, evidently
ashamed, met them with murmurs and growls. "Bad enough, bad
enough!" broke in Sigbert; "but there's no need to make it worse.
Better to waste with hunger and thirst than be a nidering fellow--
rising against your lord in his distress."

"We would never have done it if he would have kept a civil tongue."

"Civility's hard to a tongue dried up," returned Sigbert. "But look
you here, comrades, leave me a word with my young lord here, and I
plight my faith that you shall have enow to quench your