companions,
"an' were he set down in court, I wager our gracious Queen would he hard
put to it to tell him from the young Prince Edward. Dids't ever see so
strange a likeness?"

"Now that you speak of it, My Lord, I see it plainly. It is indeed a
marvel," answered Beauchamp.

Had they glanced at the old man during this colloquy, they would have
seen a blanched face, drawn with inward fear and rage.

Presently the oldest member of the party of three knights spoke in a
grave quiet tone.

"And how old might you be, my son?" he asked the boy.

"I do not know."

"And your name?"

"I do not know what you mean. I have no name. My father calls me son and
no other ever before addressed me."

At this juncture, the old man arose and left the room, saving he would
fetch more food from the kitchen, but he turned immediately he had
passed the doorway and listened from without.

"The lad appears about fifteen," said Paul of Merely, lowering his
voice, "and so would be the little lost Prince Richard, if he lives.
This one does not know his name, or his age, yet he looks enough like
Prince Edward to be his twin."

"Come, my son," he continued aloud, "open your jerkin and let us have a
look at your left breast, we shall read a true answer there."

"Are you Englishmen?" asked the boy without making a move to comply with
their demand.

"That we be, my son," said Beauchamp.

"Then it were better that I die than do your bidding, for all Englishmen
are pigs and I loathe them as becomes a gentleman of France. I do not
uncover my body to the eyes of swine."

The knights, at first taken back by this unexpected outbreak, finally
burst into uproarious laughter.

"Indeed," cried Paul of Merely, "spoken as one of the King's foreign
favorites might speak, and they ever told the good God's truth. But come
lad, we would not harm you--do as I bid."

"No man lives who can harm me while a blade hangs at my side," answered
the boy, "and as for doing as you bid, I take orders from no man other
than my father."

Beauchamp and Greystoke laughed aloud at the discomfiture of Paul of
Merely, but the latter's face hardened in anger, and without further
words he strode forward with outstretched hand to tear open the boy's
leathern jerkin, but met with the gleaming point of a sword and a quick
sharp, "En garde!" from the boy.

There was naught for Paul of Merely to do but draw his own weapon, in
self-defense, for the sharp point of the boy