of the hut Philippe smiled as an artist may smile who gazes on the
perfected work and knows it to be adroit.

"You prefer to remain, my sister?" he said presently. "Hé bien! it
happens that to-night I am in a mood for granting almost any favor. A
little later and I will attend to your merits." The fleet disorder of
his visage had lapsed again into the meditative smile which was that of
Lucifer watching a toasted soul. "And so it ends," he said, "and England
loses to-night the heir that Manuel the Redeemer provided. Conqueror of
Scotland, Scourge of France! O unconquerable king! and will the worms of
Ermenoueïl, then, pause to-morrow to consider through what a glorious
turmoil their dinner came to them?"

"Do you design to murder me?" Sire Edward said.

The French King shrugged. "I design that within this moment my lords
shall slay you while I sit here and do not move a finger. Is it not good
to be a king, my cousin, and to sit quite still, and to see your
bitterest enemy hacked and slain,--and all the while to sit quite still,
quite unruffled, as a king should always be? Eh, eh! I never lived until
to-night!"

"Now, by Heaven," said Sire Edward, "I am your kinsman and your guest, I
am unarmed--"

Philippe bowed his head. "Undoubtedly," he assented, "the deed is foul.
But I desire Gascony very earnestly, and so long as you live you will
never permit me to retain Gascony. Hence it is quite necessary, you
conceive, that I murder you. What!" he presently said, "will you not beg
for mercy? I had hoped," the French King added, somewhat wistfully,