not what I said, dull slave?" she said, turning short
round on him, and speaking with emphasis. "Tell the heathen Soldan, thy
master, that I scorn his suit as much as I despise the prostration of a
worthless renegade to religion and chivalry--to God and to his lady!"

So saying, she burst from him, tore her garment from his grasp, and left
the tent.

The voice of Neville, at the same time, summoned him from without.
Exhausted and stupefied by the distress he had undergone during this
interview, from which he could only have extricated himself by breach
of the engagement which he had formed with King Richard, the unfortunate
knight staggered rather than walked after the English baron, till they
reached the royal pavilion, before which a party of horsemen had just
dismounted. There were light and motion within the tent, and when
Neville entered with his disguised attendant, they found the King,
with several of his nobility, engaged in welcoming those who were newly
arrived.

CHAPTER XXVI.

"The tears I shed must ever fall.
I weep not for an absent swain;
For time may happier hours recall,
And parted lovers meet again.

"I weep not for the silent dead.
Their pains are past, their sorrows o'er;
And those that loved their steps must tread,
When death shall join to part no more."

But worse than absence, worse than death,
She wept her lover's sullied fame,
And, fired with all the pride of birth,
She wept a soldier's injured name.
BALLAD.

The frank and bold voice of Richard was heard in joyous gratulation.

"Thomas de Vaux! stout Tom of the Gills! by the head of King Henry, thou
art welcome to me as ever was flask of wine to a jolly toper! I should
scarce have known how to order my battle-array, unless I had thy bulky
form in mine eye as a landmark to form my ranks upon. We shall have
blows anon, Thomas, if the saints be gracious to us; and had we fought
in thine absence, I would have looked to hear of thy being found hanging
upon an elder-tree."

"I should have borne my disappointment with more Christian patience,
I trust," said Thomas de Vaux, "than to have died the death of an
apostate. But I thank your Grace for my welcome, which is the more
generous, as it respects a banquet of blows, of which, saving your
pleasure, you are ever too apt to engross the larger share. But here
have I brought one to whom your Grace will, I know, give a