her flayed alive. Ha, St. George! ha, St.
Richard! whom have we here?" And he lifted up his demi-culverin, or
curtal-axe--a weapon weighing about thirteen hundredweight--and was
about to fling it at the intruder's head, when the latter, kneeling
gracefully on one knee, said calmly, "It is I, my good liege, Wilfrid of
Ivanhoe."

"What, Wilfrid of Templestowe, Wilfrid the married man, Wilfrid the
henpecked!" cried the King with a sudden burst of good-humor, flinging
away the culverin from him, as though it had been a reed (it lighted
three hundred yards off, on the foot of Hugo de Bunyon, who was smoking
a cigar at the door of his tent, and caused that redoubted warrior to
limp for some days after). "What, Wilfrid my gossip? Art come to see
the lion's den? There are bones in it, man, bones and carcasses, and the
lion is angry," said the King, with a terrific glare of his eyes. "But
tush! we will talk of that anon. Ho! bring two gallons of hypocras for
the King and the good Knight, Wilfrid of Ivanhoe. Thou art come in
time, Wilfrid, for, by St. Richard and St. George, we will give a grand
assault to-morrow. There will be bones broken, ha!"

"I care not, my liege," said Ivanhoe, pledging the sovereign
respectfully, and tossing off the whole contents of the bowl of hypocras
to his Highness's good health. And he at once appeared to be taken into
high favor; not a little to the envy of many of the persons surrounding
the King.

As his Majesty said, there was fighting and feasting in plenty before
Chalus. Day after day, the besiegers made assaults upon the castle, but
it was held so stoutly by the Count of Chalus and his gallant
garrison, that each afternoon beheld the attacking-parties returning
disconsolately to their tents, leaving behind them many of their own
slain, and bringing back with them store of broken heads and maimed
limbs, received in the unsuccessful onset. The valor displayed by
Ivanhoe in all these contests was prodigious; and the way in which
he escaped death from the discharges of mangonels, catapults,
battering-rams, twenty-four pounders, boiling oil, and other artillery,
with which the besieged received their enemies, was remarkable. After
a day's fighting, Gurth and Wamba used to pick the arrows out of their
intrepid master's coat-of-mail, as if they had been so many almonds in
a pudding. 'Twas well for the good knight, that under his first coat-of
armor he wore a choice suit of Toledan steel, perfectl