did either. I will never do that. Let her go to
her own country.'

'Sire, sire,' said Joan, 'how is she to do that?'

'As she will,' says the King; 'but, for my part of it, with every proper
accompaniment.'

'Sire, the dowry--'

'I return it, every groat.'

'The affront--'

'The affront is offered. I prevent a greater affront.'

'Is this fixed, Richard?'

'Irrevocably.'

'She loves you, sire!'

'She loves ill. Get up on your feet.'

'Sire, I beseech you pity her.'

'I pity her deeply. I think I pity everybody with whom I have had to
deal. I do not choose to have any more pitiful persons about me. Fare
you well, sister. Go, lest I pity you.' She pleaded.

'Ah, sire!'

'The audience is at an end,' said the King; and the Queen of Sicily rose
to take leave.

* * * * *

He kept his word, never saw Berengere again but once, and that was not
yet. What remained for him to do in Syria he did, patched up a truce
with Saladin, saw to Henry of Champagne's election, to Guy of Lusignan's
establishment; dealt out such rewards and punishments as lay in his
power, sent the two queens with a convoy to Marseilles. Then, two years
from his hopeful entry into Acre as a conqueror, he left it a defeated
man. He had won every battle he had fought and taken every city he had
invested. His allies had beaten him, not the heathen.

They were to beat him again, with help. The very skies took their part.
He was beset by storms from the day he launched on the deep, separated
from his convoy, driven from one shore to another, fatally delayed. His
enemies had time to gather at home: Eustace of Saint-Pol, Beauvais,
Philip of France; and behind all these was John of Mortain, moving
heaven and earth and them to get him a realm. By a providence, as he
thought it, Richard put into Corsica under stress of weather, and there
heard how the land lay in Gaul. Philip had won over Raymond of Toulouse,
Saint-Pol heading a joint-army of theirs was near Marseilles, ready to
destroy him. King Richard was to walk into a trap. By this time, you
must know, he had no more to his power than the galley he rode in, and
three others. He had no Des Barres, no Gaston, no Beziers; he had not
even Mercadet his captain, and no thought where they might be. The trap
would have caught him fast.

'Pretty work,' he said, 'pretty work. But I will better it.' He put
about, and steered round Sicily for the coast of Dalmatia; here wa