also, and you list to trust me with a falcon on fist, I trust I
could supply your royal mess with some choice waterfowl."

"I dread me, if thou hadst but the falcon," said the King, "thou
wouldst scarce wait for the permission. I wot well it is said
abroad that we of the line of Anjou resent offence against our
forest-laws as highly as we would do treason against our crown.
To brave and worthy men, however, we could pardon either
misdemeanour.--But enough of this. I desire to know of you, Sir
Knight, wherefore, and by whose authority, you took this recent
journey to the wilderness of the Dead Sea and Engaddi?"

"By order," replied the knight, "of the Council of Princes of the
Holy Crusade."

"And how dared any one to give such an order, when I--not the
least, surely, in the league--was unacquainted with it?"

"It was not my part, please your highness," said the Scot, "to
inquire into such particulars. I am a soldier of the Cross
--serving, doubtless, for the present, under your highness's
banner, and proud of the permission to do so, but still one who
hath taken on him the holy symbol for the rights of Christianity
and the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, and bound, therefore, to
obey without question the orders of the princes and chiefs by
whom the blessed enterprise is directed. That indisposition
should seclude, I trust for but a short time, your highness from
their councils, in which you hold so potential a voice, I must
lament with all Christendom; but, as a soldier, I must obey those
on whom the lawful right of command devolves, or set but an evil