the Holy
City impregnable at this season, or untenable; and Ascalon still
pregnable.'

The King put a hand to the table. 'It means nothing of the sort, man.
You do not believe Ascalon can be taken. It is eight days' journey, and
was in straits a month ago. You make me ashamed of the men I am forced
to lead. What faith have you? What religion? The faith of your sick
master the Runagate! The religion of your white Marquess of Montferrat!
And I had taken you for men. Foh! you are rats.'

This was dreadful hearing: Saint-Pol bit his lip, but made no other
answer.

'Sire,' said the Bishop with heat, 'my manhood has never been reproached
before. When you carried war into my country in the King your father's
time, I met you in a hauberk of mail. If I met your Grace, judge if I
should fear the Soldan. It is my devout hope to kiss the Holy Sepulchre
and touch the Holy Cross, but before I die, not afterwards.'

'Pish!' said King Richard.

'Sire,' Beauvais ventured again, 'our master King Philip set us over his
host as foster-fathers of his children. We dare not imperil so many
lives unadvisedly.'

'Unadvisedly!' the King thundered at him, red to the roots of his hair.

'I withdraw the word, sire,' said the Bishop in a hurry; 'yet it is the
mature opinion of us all that we should seek the coast for
winter-quarters, not the high lands. We claim, at least, the duty of
choosing for those whose guardians we are.'

If Richard had been himself of two years earlier he would have killed
then and there a second Count of Saint-Pol; and for a pulse or two the
young man saw his death bright in the King's eyes. That the angry man
commanded himself is, I think, to his credit. As it was, he did what he
had certainly never done before: he tried to reason with the Duke of
Burgundy.

'Duke of Burgundy,' he said, leaning over his chair and talking low,
'you are no Frenchman, and the more of a man on that account. You and I
have had our differences. I have blamed you, and you me. But I have
never found you a laggard when there was work for the sword or adventure
for the heart. Now, of all adventures in the world the highest in which
a man may engage is here. Across those hills lies the city of God, of
which (I suppose) no soul among us might, unhelped, dare hope the sight,
much less the touch, least of all the redemption. I tell you, Duke of
Burgundy, there is that within me (not my own) which will lead you
thither with profit, glory and