"for how didst thou
know, save from conscious guilt, that the question is concerning the
banner?"

"Hast thou then not kept the camp in turmoil on that and no other
score?" answered Conrade; "and dost thou impute to a prince and an ally
a crime which, after all, was probably committed by some paltry
felon for the sake of the gold thread? Or wouldst thou now impeach a
confederate on the credit of a dog?"

By this time the alarm was becoming general, so that Philip of France
interposed.

"Princes and nobles," he said, "you speak in presence of those whose
swords will soon be at the throats of each other if they hear their
leaders at such terms together. In the name of Heaven, let us draw off
each his own troops into their separate quarters, and ourselves meet
an hour hence in the Pavilion of Council to take some order in this new
state of confusion."

"Content," said King Richard, "though I should have liked to have
interrogated that caitiff while his gay doublet was yet besmirched with
sand. But the pleasure of France shall be ours in this matter."

The leaders separated as was proposed, each prince placing himself at
the head of his own forces; and then was heard on all sides the crying
of war-cries and the sounding of gathering-notes upon bugles and
trumpets, by which the different stragglers were summoned to their
prince's banner, and the troops were shortly seen in motion, each taking
different routes through the camp to their own quarters. But although
any immediate act of violence was thus prevented, yet the accident which
had taken place dwelt on every mind; and those foreigners who had that
morning hailed Richard as the worthiest to lead their army, now resumed
their prejudices against his pride and intolerance, while the English,
conceiving the honour of their country connected with the quarrel, of
which various reports had gone about, considered the natives of other
countries jealous of the fame of England and her King, and disposed to
undermine it by the meanest arts of intrigue. Many and various were the
rumours spread upon the occasion, and there was one which averred that
the Queen and her ladies had been much alarmed by the tumult, and that
one of them had swooned.

The Council assembled at the appointed hour. Conrade had in the
meanwhile laid aside his dishonoured dress, and with it the shame and
confusion which, in spite of his talents and promptitude, had at first
overwhelmed him, owing to the s