om the Persian, and quaffed a hearty flagon of Cyprus
wine, to show that his practice matched his principles. On the next day,
grave and sober as the water-drinker Mirglip, he bent his brow to the
ground before Saladin's footstool, and rendered to the Soldan an account
of his embassy.

On the day before that appointed for the combat Conrade and his friends
set off by daybreak to repair to the place assigned, and Richard left
the camp at the same hour and for the same purpose; but, as had been
agreed upon, he took his journey by a different route--a precaution
which had been judged necessary, to prevent the possibility of a quarrel
betwixt their armed attendants.

The good King himself was in no humour for quarrelling with any one.
Nothing could have added to his pleasurable anticipations of a desperate
and bloody combat in the lists, except his being in his own royal
person one of the combatants; and he was half in charity again even
with Conrade of Montserrat. Lightly armed, richly dressed, and gay as
a bridegroom on the eve of his nuptials, Richard caracoled along by
the side of Queen Berengaria's litter, pointing out to her the various
scenes through which they passed, and cheering with tale and song the
bosom of the inhospitable wilderness. The former route of the Queen's
pilgrimage to Engaddi had been on the other side of the chain of
mountains, so that the ladies were strangers to the scenery of the
desert; and though Berengaria knew her husband's disposition too well
not to endeavour to seem interested in what he was pleased either to
say or to sing, she could not help indulging some female fears when she
found herself in the howling wilderness with so small an escort, which
seemed almost like a moving speck on the bosom of the plain, and knew
at the same time they were not so distant from the camp of Saladin,
but what they might be in a moment surprised and swept off by an
overpowering host of his fiery-footed cavalry, should the pagan be
faithless enough to embrace an opportunity thus tempting. But when she
hinted these suspicions to Richard he repelled them with displeasure and
disdain. "It were worse than ingratitude," he said, "to doubt the good
faith of the generous Soldan."

Yet the same doubts and fears recurred more than once, not to the timid
mind of the Queen alone, but to the firmer and more candid soul of Edith
Plantagenet, who had no such confidence in the faith of the Moslem as
to render her per