vereign
has been beset by sickness and sorrow--faint friends and forward
enemies." Then opening the dispatches, he said hastily, "Ha! this comes
from no peaceful land--they too have their feuds. Neville, begone; I
must peruse these tidings alone, and at leisure."

Neville withdrew accordingly, and Richard was soon absorbed in the
melancholy details which had been conveyed to him from England,
concerning the factions that were tearing to pieces his native
dominions--the disunion of his brothers John and Geoffrey, and the
quarrels of both with the High Justiciary Longchamp, Bishop of Ely--the
oppressions practised by the nobles upon the peasantry, and rebellion of
the latter against their masters, which had produced everywhere scenes
of discord, and in some instances the effusion of blood. Details of
incidents mortifying to his pride, and derogatory from his authority,
were intermingled with the earnest advice of his wisest and most
attached counsellors that he should presently return to England, as
his presence offered the only hope of saving the Kingdom from all the
horrors of civil discord, of which France and Scotland were likely to
avail themselves. Filled with the most painful anxiety, Richard read,
and again read, the ill-omened letters; compared the intelligence which
some of them contained with the same facts as differently stated in
others; and soon became totally insensible to whatever was passing
around him, although seated, for the sake of coolness, close to the
entrance of his tent, and having the curtains withdrawn, so that he
could see and be seen by the guards and others who were stationed
without.

Deeper in the shadow of the pavilion, and busied with the task his new
master had imposed, sat the Nubian slave, with his back rather turned
towards the King. He had finished adjusting and cleaning the hauberk and
brigandine, and was now busily employed on a broad pavesse, or buckler,
of unusual size, and covered with steel-plating, which Richard often
used in reconnoitring, or actually storming fortified places, as a more
effectual protection against missile weapons than the narrow triangular
shield used on horseback. This pavesse bore neither the royal lions
of England, nor any other device, to attract the observation of
the defenders of the walls against which it was advanced; the care,
therefore, of the armourer was addressed to causing its surface to shine
as bright as crystal, in which he seemed to be