hat anxiety have we not suffered. Had
you been my own son, I could not have felt more your loss. We did not
doubt for an instant that you had fallen into the hands of some of the
retainers of that villain Count; and from all we could learn, and from
the absence of any dead body by the side of that of Cnut, I imagined that
you must have been carried off. It was clear that your chance of life, if
you fell into the hands of that evil page, or his equally vile master,
was small indeed. The very day that Cnut was brought in, I visited the
French camp, and accused him of having been the cause of your
disappearance and Cnut's wounds. He affected the greatest astonishment at
the charge. He had not, as he said, been out of the camp for two days. My
accusation was unfounded and malicious, and I should answer this as well
as the previous outrage, when the vow of the Crusaders to keep peace
among themselves was at an end. Of course I had no means of proving what
I said, or I would have gone direct to the king and charged him with the
outrage. As it was I gained nothing by my pains. He has accompanied this
French division to Genoa; but when we meet at Sicily, where the two
armies are to rendezvous, I will bring the matter before the king, as the
fact that his page was certainly concerned in it must be taken as showing
that he was the instigator."

"It would, my lord earl, be perhaps better," Cuthbert said, "if I
might venture to advise, to leave the matter alone. No doubt the count
would say that he had discharged his page after the tournament, and
that the latter was only carrying out his private feud with me. We
should not be able to disprove the story, and should gain no
satisfaction by the matter."

The earl admitted the justice of Cuthbert's reasoning, but reserved to
himself the task of punishing the author of the outrage upon the first
fitting opportunity.

There was a weary delay at Marseilles before the expedition set sail.
This was caused by the fact of the English fleet, which had been ordered
to be there upon their arrival, failing to keep the agreement.

The words English fleet badly describe the vessels which were to carry
the English contingent to their destination. They were ships belonging to
the maritime nations of Italy--the Venetians, Genoese, Pisans, etc.; for
England at that time had but few of her own, and these scarcely fitted
for the stormy navigation of the Bay of Biscay.

King Richard, impatient as ev