The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 Part 22

"Nevertheless," said Richard, "I pray you do for him what you may, that he may at least have time for confession. Slay not soul and body! To him one half-hour of time may be worth more, by ten thousand fold, than the life of the oldest patriarch."

"My royal brother's wish shall be obeyed," said Saladin.--"Slaves, bear this wounded man to our tent."

"Do not so," said the Templar, who had hitherto stood gloomily looking on in silence. "The royal Duke of Austria and myself will not permit this unhappy Christian prince to be delivered over to the Saracens, that they may try their spells upon him. We are his sponsors, and demand that he be a.s.signed to our care."

"That is, you refuse the certain means offered to recover him?" said Richard.

"Not so," said the Grand Master, recollecting himself. "If the Soldan useth lawful medicines, he may attend the patient in my tent."

"Do so, I pray thee, good brother," said Richard to Saladin, "though the permission be ungraciously yielded.--But now to a more glorious work.

Sound, trumpets--shout, England, in honor of England's champion!"

Drum, clarion, trumpet, and cymbal, rung forth at once, and the deep and regular shout, which for ages has been the English acclamation, sounded amidst the shrill and irregular yells of the Arabs, like the diapason of the organ amid the howling of a storm. There was silence at length.

"Brave Knight of the Leopard," resumed Coeur de Lion, "thou hast shown that the Ethiopian _may_ change his skin and the Leopard his spots, though clerks quote Scripture for the impossibility. Yet I have more to say to you when I have conducted you to the presence of the ladies, the best judges, and best rewarders, of deeds of chivalry."

The Knight of the Leopard bowed a.s.sent.

"And thou, princely Saladin, wilt also attend them. I promise thee our Queen will not think herself welcome, if she lacks the opportunity to thank her royal host for her most princely reception."

Saladin bent his head gracefully, but declined the invitation.

"I must attend the wounded man," he said. "The leech leaves not his patient more than the champion the lists, even if he be summoned to a bower like those of Paradise.... At noon," said the Soldan, as he departed, "I trust ye will all accept a collation under the black camel-skin tent of a chief of Curdistan."

The same invitation was circulated among the Christians, comprehending all those of sufficient importance to be admitted to sit at a feast made for princes.

"Hark!" said Richard, "the timbrels announce that our Queen and her attendants are leaving their gallery; and see, the turbans sink on the ground, as if struck down by a destroying angel. All lie prostrate, as if the glance of an Arab's eye could sully the l.u.s.tre of a lady's cheek!

Come, we will to the pavillion, and lead our conqueror thither in triumph. How I pity that n.o.ble Soldan, who knows but of love as it is known to those of inferior nature!"

Blondel tuned his harp to its boldest measure, to welcome the introduction of the victor into the pavilion of Queen Berengaria.

He entered, supported on either side by his sponsors, Richard and William Longsword, and knelt gracefully down before the Queen, though more than half the homage was silently rendered to Edith, who sat on her right hand.

"Unarm him, my mistresses," said the King, whose delight was in the execution of such chivalrous usages; "let Beauty honor Chivalry! Undo his spurs, Berengaria; Queen though thou be, thou owest him what marks of favor thou canst give.--Unlace his helmet, Edith; by this hand, thou shalt, wert thou the proudest Plantagenet of the line, and he the poorest knight on earth!"

Both ladies obeyed the royal commands,--Berengaria with bustling a.s.siduity, as anxious to gratify her husband's humor, and Edith blus.h.i.+ng and growing pale alternately, as slowly and awkwardly she undid, with Longsword's a.s.sistance, the fastenings which secured the helmet to the gorget.

"And what expect you from beneath this iron sh.e.l.l?" said Richard, as the removal of the casque gave to view the n.o.ble countenance of Sir Kenneth, his face glowing with recent exertion, and not less so with present emotion. "What think ye of him, gallants and beauties?" said Richard.

"Doth he resemble an Ethiopian slave, or doth he present the face of an obscure and nameless adventurer? No, by my good sword! Here terminate his various disguises. He hath knelt down before you, unknown save by his worth; he arises, equally distinguished by birth and by fortune. The adventurous knight, Kenneth, arises David, Earl of Huntingdon, Prince Royal of Scotland!"

There was a general exclamation of surprise, and Edith dropped from her hand the helmet which she had just received....

"May we know of your grace by what strange and happy chance this riddle has been read?" said the Queen Berengaria.

"Letters were brought to us from England," said the King, "in which we learned, among other unpleasant news, that the King of Scotland had seized upon three of our n.o.bles, when on a pilgrimage to Saint Ninian, and alleged as a cause, that his heir being supposed to be fighting in the ranks of the Teutonic Knights, against the heathen of Borussia, was, in fact, in our camp and in our power; and, therefore, William proposed to hold these n.o.bles as hostages for his safety. This gave me the first light on the real rank of the Knight of the Leopard, and my suspicions were confirmed by De Vaux, who, on his return from Ascalon, brought back with him the Earl of Huntingdon's sole attendant, a thick-skulled slave, who had gone thirty miles to unfold to De Vaux a secret he should have told to me."

"Old Strauchan must be excused," said the Lord of Gilsland. "He knew from experience that my heart is somewhat softer than if I wrote myself Plantagenet."

"Thy heart soft? thou commodity of old iron, and c.u.mberland flint that thou art!" exclaimed the King. "It is we Plantagenets who boast soft and feeling hearts, Edith," he continued, turning to his cousin, with an expression which called the blood into her cheek.--"Give me thy hand, my fair cousin, and, Prince of Scotland, thine."...

It is needless to follow into further particulars the conferences at the royal tent, or to enquire whether David, Earl of Huntingdon, was as mute in the presence of Edith Plantagenet, as when he was bound to act under the character of an obscure and nameless adventurer. It may be well believed that he there expressed, with suitable earnestness, the pa.s.sion to which he had so often before found it difficult to give words.

The hour of noon now approached, and Saladin waited to receive the Princes of Christendom in a tent, which, but for its large size, differed little from that of the ordinary shelter of the common Curdman, or Arab; yet, beneath its ample and sable covering, was prepared a banquet after the most gorgeous fas.h.i.+on of the East, extended upon carpets of the richest stuffs, with cus.h.i.+ons laid for the guests. But we cannot stop to describe the cloth of gold and silver, the superb embroidery in Arabesque, the shawls of Cashmere, and the muslins of India, which were here unfolded in all their splendor; far less to tell the different sweetmeats, ragouts edged with rice colored in various manners, with all the other niceties of Eastern cookery. Lambs roasted whole, and game and poultry dressed in pilaus, were piled in vessels of gold, and silver, and porcelain, and intermixed with large mazers of sherbet, cooled in snow and ice from the caverns of Mount Lebanon. A magnificent pile of cus.h.i.+ons at the head of the banquet, seemed prepared for the master of the feast, and such dignitaries as he might call to share that place of distinction, while from the roof of the tent in all quarters, but over this seat of eminence in particular, waved many a banner and pennon, the trophies of battles won, and kingdoms overthrown.

But amongst and above them all, a long lance displayed a shroud, the banner of Death, with this impressive inscription, "SALADIN, KING OF KINGS--SALADIN, VICTOR OF VICTORS--SALADIN MUST DIE." Amid these preparations, the slaves who had arranged the refreshments stood with drooped heads and folded arms, mute and motionless as monumental statuary, or as automata, which waited the touch of the artist to put them in motion.

Expecting the approach of his princely guests, the Soldan, imbued, as most were, with the superst.i.tions of his time, paused over a horoscope and corresponding scroll, which had been sent to him by the Hermit of Engaddi when he departed from the camp.

"Strange and mysterious science," he muttered to himself, "which, pretending to draw the curtain of futurity, misleads those whom it seems to guide, and darkens the scene which it pretends to illuminate! Who would not have said that I was that enemy most dangerous to Richard, whose enmity was to be ended by marriage with his kinswoman? Yet it now appears that a union betwixt this gallant Earl and the lady will bring about friends.h.i.+p betwixt Richard and Scotland, an enemy more dangerous than I, as a wild cat in a chamber is more to be dreaded than a lion in a distant desert.--But then,...--How now, what means this intrusion?"

He spoke to the dwarf Nectaba.n.u.s, who rushed into the tent fearfully agitated, with each strange and disproportioned feature wrenched by horror into still more extravagant ugliness,--his mouth open, his eyes staring, his hands, with their shrivelled and deformed fingers, wildly expanded.

"What now?" said the Soldan, sternly.

"_Accipe hoc!_" groaned out the dwarf.

"Ha! say'st thou?" answered Saladin.

"_Accipe hoc!_" replied the panic-struck creature, unconscious, perhaps, that he repeated the same words as before.

"Hence! I am in no vein for foolery," said the Emperor.

"Nor am I further fool," said the dwarf, "than to make my folly help out my wits to earn my bread, poor helpless wretch!--Hear, hear me, great Soldan!"

"Nay, if thou hast actual wrong to complain of," said Saladin, "fool or wise, thou art ent.i.tled to the ear of a King.--Retire hither with me;"

and he led him into the inner tent.

Whatever their conference related to, it was soon broken off by the fanfare of the trumpets, announcing the arrival of the various Christian princes, whom Saladin welcomed to his tent with a royal courtesy well becoming their rank and his own; but chiefly he saluted the young Earl of Huntingdon, and generously congratulated him upon prospects, which seemed to have interfered with and overclouded those which he had himself entertained.

"But think not," said the Soldan, "thou n.o.ble youth, that the Prince of Scotland is more welcome to Saladin, than was Kenneth to the solitary Ilderim when they met in the desert, or the distressed Ethiop to the Hakim Adonbec. A brave and generous disposition like thine hath a value independent of condition and birth, as the cool draught which I here proffer thee, is as delicious from an earthen vessel as from a goblet of gold."

The Earl of Huntingdon made a suitable reply, gratefully acknowledging the various important services he had received from the generous Soldan; but when he had pledged Saladin in the bowl of sherbet which the Soldan had proffered to him, he could not help remarking with a smile, "The brave cavalier, Ilderim, knew not of the formation of ice, but the munificent Soldan cools his sherbet with snow."

"Wouldst thou have an Arab or a Curdman as wise as a Hakim?" said the Soldan. "He who does on a disguise must make the sentiments of his heart and the learning of his head accord with the dress which he a.s.sumes. I desired to see how a brave and single-hearted cavalier of Frangistan would conduct himself in debate with such a chief as I then seemed; and I questioned the truth of a well-known fact, to know by what arguments thou wouldst support thy a.s.sertion."

While they were speaking, the Archduke of Austria, who stood a little apart, was struck with the mention of iced sherbet, and took with pleasure and some bluntness the deep goblet, as the Earl of Huntingdon was about to replace it.

"Most delicious!" he exclaimed, after a deep draught, which the heat of the weather, and the feverishness following the debauch of the preceding day, had rendered doubly acceptable. He sighed as he handed the cup to the Grand Master of the Templars. Saladin made a sign to the dwarf, who advanced and p.r.o.nounced, with a harsh voice, the words, _Accipe hoc!_ The Templar started, like a steed who sees a lion under a bush, beside the pathway; yet instantly recovered, and to hide, perhaps, his confusion, raised the goblet to his lips;--but those lips never touched that goblet's rim. The sabre of Saladin left its sheath as lightning leaves the cloud. It was waved in the air,--and the head of the Grand Master rolled to the extremity of the tent, while the trunk remained, for a second, standing, with the goblet still clenched in its grasp, then fell, the liquor mingling with the blood that spurted from the veins.

There was a general exclamation of treason, and Austria, nearest to whom Saladin stood with the b.l.o.o.d.y sabre in his hand, started back as if apprehensive that his turn was to come next. Richard and others laid hand on their swords.

"Fear nothing, n.o.ble Austria," said Saladin, as composedly as if nothing had happened, "nor you, royal England, be wroth at what you have seen.

Not for his manifold treasons;--not for the attempt which, as may be vouched by his own squire, he instigated against King Richard's life;--not that he pursued the Prince of Scotland and myself in the desert, reducing us to save our lives by the speed of our horses;--not that he had stirred up the Maronites to attack us upon this very occasion, had I not brought up unexpectedly so many Arabs as rendered the scheme abortive;--not for any or all of these crimes does he now lie there, although each were deserving such a doom;--but because, scarce half-an-hour ere he polluted our presence, as the simoom empoisons the atmosphere, he poniarded his comrade and accomplice, Conrade of Montserrat, lest he should confess the infamous plots in which they had both been engaged."

"How! Conrade murdered?--And by the Grand Master, his sponsor and most intimate friend!" exclaimed Richard. "n.o.ble Soldan, I would not doubt thee; yet this must be proved; otherwise"----

"There stands the evidence," said Saladin, pointing to the terrified dwarf. "Allah, who sends the fire-fly to illuminate the night-season, can discover secret crimes by the most contemptible means."

The Soldan proceeded to tell the dwarf's story, which amounted to this.--In his foolish curiosity, or as he partly confessed, with some thoughts of pilfering, Nectaba.n.u.s had strayed into the tent of Conrade, which had been deserted by his attendants, some of whom had left the encampment to carry the news of his defeat to his brother, and others were availing themselves of the means which Saladin had supplied for revelling. The wounded man slept under the influence of Saladin's wonderful talisman, so that the dwarf had opportunity to pry about at pleasure, until he was frightened into concealment by the sound of a heavy step. He skulked behind a curtain, yet could see the motions, and hear the words of the Grand Master, who entered, and carefully secured the covering of the pavillion behind him. His victim started from sleep, and it would appear that he instantly suspected the purpose of his old a.s.sociate, for it was in a tone of alarm that he demanded wherefore he disturbed him.