he shrewd Scottish man, "I hold to be
assumed to win favour and reverence from the Paynimrie, who regard
madmen as the inspired of Heaven--at least it seemed to me as exhibited
only occasionally, and not as mixing, like natural folly, with the
general tenor of his mind."

"Shrewdly replied," said the monarch, throwing himself back on his
couch, from which he had half-raised himself. "Now of his penitence?"

"His penitence," continued Kenneth, "appears to me sincere, and the
fruits of remorse for some dreadful crime, for which he seems, in his
own opinion, condemned to reprobation."

"And for his policy?" said King Richard.

"Methinks, my lord," said the Scottish knight, "he despairs of the
security of Palestine, as of his own salvation, by any means short of
a miracle--at least, since the arm of Richard of England hath ceased to
strike for it."

"And, therefore, the coward policy of this hermit is like that of these
miserable princes, who, forgetful of their knighthood and their faith,
are only resolved and determined when the question is retreat, and
rather than go forward against an armed Saracen, would trample in their
flight over a dying ally!"

"Might I so far presume, my Lord King," said the Scottish knight, "this
discourse but heats your disease, the enemy from which Christendom
dreads more evil than from armed hosts of infidels."

The countenance of King Richard was, indeed, more flushed, and his
action became more feverishly vehement, as, with clenched hand, extended
arm, and flashing eyes, he seemed at once to suffer under bodily pain,
and at the same time under vexation of mind, while his high spirit led
him to speak on, as if in contempt of both.

"You can flatter, Sir Knight," he said, "but you escape me not. I must
know more from you than you have yet told me. Saw you my royal consort
when at Engaddi?"

"To my knowledge--no, my lord," replied Sir Kenneth, with considerable
perturbation, for he remembered the midnight procession in the chapel of
the rocks.

"I ask you," said the King, in a sterner voice, "whether you were not in
the chapel of the Carmelite nuns at Engaddi, and there saw Berengaria,
Queen of England, and the ladies of her Court, who went thither on
pilgrimage?"

"My lord," said Sir Kenneth, "I will speak the truth as in the
confessional. In a subterranean chapel, to which the anchorite conducted
me, I beheld a choir of ladies do homage to a relic of the highest
sanctity; but a