ngth be entirely
restored."

"I must obey thee, Hakim," said the King; "yet believe me, my bosom
feels so free from the wasting fire which for so many days hath scorched
it, that I care not how soon I expose it to a brave man's lance.--But
hark! what mean these shouts, and that distant music, in the camp? Go,
Thomas de Vaux, and make inquiry."

"It is the Archduke Leopold," said De Vaux, returning after a minute's
absence, "who makes with his pot-companions some procession through the
camp."

"The drunken fool!" exclaimed King Richard; "can he not keep his brutal
inebriety within the veil of his pavilion, that he must needs show
his shame to all Christendom?--What say you, Sir Marquis?" he added,
addressing himself to Conrade of Montserrat, who at that moment entered
the tent.

"Thus much, honoured Prince," answered the Marquis, "that I delight
to see your Majesty so well, and so far recovered; and that is a long
speech for any one to make who has partaken of the Duke of Austria's
hospitality."

"What! you have been dining with the Teutonic wine-skin!" said
the monarch. "And what frolic has he found out to cause all this
disturbance? Truly, Sir Conrade, I have still held you so good a
reveller that I wonder at your quitting the game."

De Vaux, who had got a little behind the King, now exerted himself by
look and sign to make the Marquis understand that he should say nothing
to Richard of what was passing without. But Conrade understood not, or
heeded not, the prohibition.

"What the Archduke does," he said, "is of little consequence to any one,
least of all to himself, since he probably knows not what he is acting;
yet, to say truth, it is a gambol I should not like to share in, since
he is pulling down the banner of England from Saint George's Mount, in
the centre of the camp yonder, and displaying his own in its stead."

"WHAT sayest thou?" exclaimed the King, in a tone which might have waked
the dead.

"Nay," said the Marquis, "let it not chafe your Highness that a fool
should act according to his folly--"

"Speak not to me," said Richard, springing from his couch, and casting
on his clothes with a dispatch which seemed marvellous--"Speak not to
me, Lord Marquis!--De Multon, I command thee speak not a word to
me--he that breathes but a syllable is no friend to Richard
Plantagenet.--Hakim, be silent, I charge thee!"

All this while the King was hastily clothing himself, and, with the last
word, snatch