to the unkingly act of himself slaying
an unresisting prisoner, made haste to remove Sir Kenneth by a private
issue to a separate tent, where he was disarmed, and put in fetters
for security. De Vaux looked on with a steady and melancholy attention,
while the provost's officers, to whom Sir Kenneth was now committed,
took these severe precautions.

When they were ended, he said solemnly to the unhappy criminal, "It is
King Richard's pleasure that you die undegraded--without mutilation of
your body, or shame to your arms--and that your head be severed from the
trunk by the sword of the executioner."

"It is kind," said the knight, in a low and rather submissive tone of
voice, as one who received an unexpected favour; "my family will not
then hear the worst of the tale. Oh, my father--my father!"

This muttered invocation did not escape the blunt but kindly-natured
Englishman, and he brushed the back of his large hand over his rough
features ere he could proceed.

"It is Richard of England's further pleasure," he said at length, "that
you have speech with a holy man; and I have met on the passage hither
with a Carmelite friar, who may fit you for your passage. He waits
without, until you are in a frame of mind to receive him."

"Let it be instantly," said the knight. "In this also Richard is kind. I
cannot be more fit to see the good father at any time than now; for life
and I have taken farewell, as two travellers who have arrived at the
crossway, where their roads separate."

"It is well," said De Vaux slowly and solemnly; "for it irks me somewhat
to say that which sums my message. It is King Richard's pleasure that
you prepare for instant death."

"God's pleasure and the King's be done," replied the knight patiently.
"I neither contest the justice of the sentence, nor desire delay of the
execution."

De Vaux began to leave the tent, but very slowly--paused at the door,
and looked back at the Scot, from whose aspect thoughts of the world
seemed banished, as if he was composing himself into deep devotion. The
feelings of the stout English baron were in general none of the most
acute, and yet, on the present occasion, his sympathy overpowered him in
an unusual manner. He came hastily back to the bundle of reeds on which
the captive lay, took one of his fettered hands, and said, with as much
softness as his rough voice was capable of expressing, "Sir Kenneth,
thou art yet young--thou hast a father. My Ralph, whom