ns. The leaders of the mercenaries
received a donation in gold; an argument the most persuasive to their
minds, and without which all others would have proved in vain. Promises
were still more liberally distributed than money by this active agent;
and, in fine, nothing was left undone that could determine the wavering,
or animate the disheartened. The return of King Richard he spoke of
as an event altogether beyond the reach of probability; yet, when
he observed, from the doubtful looks and uncertain answers which he
received, that this was the apprehension by which the minds of his
accomplices were most haunted, he boldly treated that event, should
it really take place, as one which ought not to alter their political
calculations.

"If Richard returns," said Fitzurse, "he returns to enrich his needy and
impoverished crusaders at the expense of those who did not follow him
to the Holy Land. He returns to call to a fearful reckoning, those who,
during his absence, have done aught that can be construed offence or
encroachment upon either the laws of the land or the privileges of
the crown. He returns to avenge upon the Orders of the Temple and the
Hospital, the preference which they showed to Philip of France during
the wars in the Holy Land. He returns, in fine, to punish as a rebel
every adherent of his brother Prince John. Are ye afraid of his power?"
continued the artful confident of that Prince, "we acknowledge him a
strong and valiant knight; but these are not the days of King Arthur,
when a champion could encounter an army. If Richard indeed comes back,
it must be alone,--unfollowed--unfriended. The bones of his gallant army
have whitened the sands of Palestine. The few of his followers who have
returned have straggled hither like this Wilfred of Ivanhoe, beggared
and broken men.--And what talk ye of Richard's right of birth?" he
proceeded, in answer to those who objected scruples on that head. "Is
Richard's title of primogeniture more decidedly certain than that of
Duke Robert of Normandy, the Conqueror's eldest son? And yet William
the Red, and Henry, his second and third brothers, were successively
preferred to him by the voice of the nation, Robert had every merit
which can be pleaded for Richard; he was a bold knight, a good leader,
generous to his friends and to the church, and, to crown the whole, a
crusader and a conqueror of the Holy Sepulchre; and yet he died a blind
and miserable prisoner in the Castle o