muddy pool of water which had settled in the worn flagstones of his
prison floor, and noticed that his beard was of a week's growth. Beads
of sweat stood on his forehead, and his eyes were bloodshot. In the room
next door, which was the canteen, the soldiers were playing on a drum.
Over the tall hills the dawn was ruffling the clouds. There was a faint
glimmer on the waters of the river. The footsteps of the gaolers were
heard on the outer rampart. At seven o'clock they brought the King a
good dinner: they allowed him burgundy from France, and yellow mead, and
white bread baked in the ovens of the Abbey, although he was constrained
to drink out of pewter, and plates were forbidden him. Eustace, his
page, timidly offered him music. The King bade him sing the "Lay of the
Sussex Lass," which begins thus:

Triumphant, oh! triumphant now she stands,
Above my Sussex, and above my sea!
She stretches out her thin ulterior hands
Across the morning . . .

But the King, to whom memories were portentous, called for another song
and Eustace sang a stave of that ballad which was made on the Pyrenees,
and which is still unfinished (for the modern world has no need of
these things), telling of how Lord Raymond drank in a little tent with
Charlemagne:

Enormous through the morning the tall battalions run:
The men who fought with Charlemagne are very dearly done;
The wine is dark beneath the night, the stars are in the sky,
The hammer's in the blacksmith's hand in case he wants to try.
We'll ride to Fontarabia, we'll storm the stubborn wall,
And I call.