.

'Mistress, the letter of our lord has been delivered. I think it may go
hard with the Melek.'

'What, Cogia? Does the Archduke dare?'

'The Archduke, mistress, desires not the Melek's death. He is a worthy
man. But many do desire it--kings of the West, kinsmen of the Marquess,
above all the Melek's blood-brother. One of that prince's men, as I
judge him, is with him now--one of your country, mistress.'

In a vision she saw the leper again, a dull smear in the sunny waste,
scratching himself on a white stone. She saw him come hopping from rock
to rock, his wagging finger, shapeless face, tongueless voice.

'Mistress--' said Cogia. She turned blank eyes upon him. 'I pray,' she
said; 'I pray. Has God no pity?'

Cogia shrugged. 'What has God to do with pity? The end of the world is
in His hand already. The Melek is a king, and the Norman dung in his
sight. Who knows the end but God, and how shall He pity what He hath
decreed for wisdom? This I say, if the King dies the man dies.'

Jehane threw up her head. 'The King will not die, Cogia. Yet to-morrow,
if the man comes not out, I will go to seek him.'

* * * * *

Early in the morning Gilles did come out, turned the angle of the ditch,
and shuffled towards her, his head hung. Jehane moved swiftly out from
the shadow of the buttress and confronted him. She folded her arms over
her breast; and at that moment the shadow of Richard's tower was capped
with the shadow of Richard himself. But she saw nothing of this. 'Halt
there, Sir Gilles,' she said. The Norman gave a squeal, like a hog
startled at his trough, and went dead-fire colour.

'Ha, Heart of Jesus!' said Gilles de Gurdun.

CHAPTER XII

THE CHAPTER OF STRIFE IN THE DARK

One very great power of King Richard's had never served him better than
now, the power of immense quiescence, whereunder he could sit by day or
by night as inert as a stone, a block hewn into shape of a man, neither
to be moved by outside fret nor by the workings of his own mind. Into
this rapt state he fell when the prison doors shut on him, and so
remained for three or four weeks, alone while the Fates were spinning.
The Archduke came daily to him with speeches, injuries to relate,
injuries to impart. King Richard hardly winked an eyelid. The Archduke
hinted at ransom, and Richard watched the wall behind his head; he spoke
of letters received from this great man or that, which made ransom not
to