which he had twenty times repeated the explanation--"the truce
prevents us bearing ourselves as men of action; and for the
ladies, I am no great reveller, as is well known to your Majesty,
and seldom exchange steel and buff for velvet and gold--but thus
far I know, that our choicest beauties are waiting upon the
Queen's Majesty and the Princess, to a pilgrimage to the convent
of Engaddi, to accomplish their vows for your Highness's
deliverance from this trouble."

"And is it thus," said Richard, with the impatience of
indisposition, "that royal matrons and maidens should risk
themselves, where the dogs who defile the land have as little
truth to man as they have faith towards God?"

"Nay, my lord," said De Vaux, "they have Saladin's word for their
safety."

"True, true!" replied Richard; "and I did the heathen Soldan
injustice--I owe him reparation for it. Would God I were but fit
to offer it him upon my body between the two hosts--Christendom
and heathenesse both looking on!"

As Richard spoke, he thrust his right arm out of bed naked to the
shoulder, and painfully raising himself in his couch, shook his
clenched hand, as if it grasped sword or battle-axe, and was then
brandished over the jewelled turban of the Soldan. It was not
without a gentle degree of violence, which the King would scarce
have endured from another, that De Vaux, in his character of
sick-nurse, compelled his royal master to replace himself in the
couch, and covered his sinewy arm, neck, and shoulders with the