may content
themselves--I will not put my neck into the loop of a Carmelite's
girdle. And, for your envoy, he shall die the rather and the sooner that
thou dost entreat for him."

"Now God be gracious to thee, Lord King!" said the hermit, with much
emotion; "thou art setting that mischief on foot which thou wilt
hereafter wish thou hadst stopped, though it had cost thee a limb. Rash,
blinded man, yet forbear!"

"Away, away," cried the King, stamping; "the sun has risen on the
dishonour of England, and it is not yet avenged.--Ladies and priest,
withdraw, if you would not hear orders which would displease you; for,
by St. George, I swear--"

"Swear NOT!" said the voice of one who had just then entered the
pavilion.

"Ha! my learned Hakim," said the King, "come, I hope, to tax our
generosity."

"I come to request instant speech with you--instant--and touching
matters of deep interest."

"First look on my wife, Hakim, and let her know in you the preserver of
her husband."

"It is not for me," said the physician, folding his arms with an air of
Oriental modesty and reverence, and bending his eyes on the ground--"it
is not for me to look upon beauty unveiled, and armed in its
splendours."

"Retire, then, Berengaria," said the Monarch; "and, Edith, do you retire
also;--nay, renew not your importunities! This I give to them that
the execution shall not be till high noon. Go and be pacified--dearest
Berengaria, begone.--Edith," he added, with a glance which struck terror
even into the courageous soul of his kinswoman, "go, if you are wise."

The females withdrew, or rather hurried from the tent, rank and ceremony
forgotten, much like a flock of wild-fowl huddled together, against whom
the falcon has made a recent stoop.

They returned from thence to the Queen's pavilion to indulge in regrets
and recriminations, equally unavailing. Edith was the only one who
seemed to disdain these ordinary channels of sorrow. Without a sigh,
without a tear, without a word of upbraiding, she attended upon the
Queen, whose weak temperament showed her sorrow in violent hysterical
ecstasies and passionate hypochondriacal effusions, in the course of
which Edith sedulously and even affectionately attended her.

"It is impossible she can have loved this knight," said Florise to
Calista, her senior in attendance upon the Queen's person. "We have been
mistaken; she is but sorry for his fate, as for a stranger who has come
to trouble on he