But now he has
beaten me altogether. Too strong, too much king, for a man to dare
anything singly against him. What! he slept, and I could not do it; and
then I slept, and he awoke and let me lie. Then once again I woke and
thought him still sleeping, and stabbed the bed; and he came behind me,
stealthy as a cat, and trounced me over his knee like a child. Oh, oh,
Jehane, he is more than man, and I by so much less. And now, and now, he
sends me out to win his ransom as if I were an old lover of his, and I
am going to do it! Why, God in glory look down upon us, what is the
force that he hath?'

Gilles now shivered and looked about him; but Jehane, having mastered
her breath, smiled.

'He is King,' she said. 'Come, Gilles, I will go with you. You shall
find the Abbot Milo, and I the Queen-Mother. I have the ear of her.'

'I will do as I am bid, Jehane,' said the cowed man, 'because I needs
must.'

As they went away together, King Richard on the roof threw up his arms
to the sky, howling like a night wolf. 'Now, God, Thou hast stricken me
enough. Now listen Thou, I shall strike if I can.'

* * * * *

After a while came Cogia the Assassin; to whom Jehane said, 'Cogia, I
must take a journey with this man. You shall put us on the way, and wait
for me until I come again.'

'Mistress,' replied Cogia, 'I am your slave. Do as you will.'

She put on the dress of a religious, Gilles the weeds of a pilgrim from
Jerusalem. Then Cogia bought them asses in Gratz and led them down to
Trieste. They found a ship going to Bordeaux, went on board, had a fair
passage, passed the Pillars of Hercules on their tenth day out, and were
in the Gironde in five more. At Bordeaux they separated. Gilles went to
Poictiers in a company of pilgrims; Jehane, having learned that Queen
Berengere was at Cahors, turned her face to the Gascon hills. But she
had left behind her a prisoner to whom death could bring the only ransom
worth a thought.

CHAPTER XIII

OF THE LOVE OF WOMEN

'Ask me no more how I did in those days,' writes Abbot Milo. 'Mercy
smile upon me in the article of death, but I worked for the ransom of
King Richard as (I hope) I should for that of King Christ. Many an abbey
of Touraine goes lean now because of me; many a mass is wrought in a
pewter chalice that Richard might come home. Yet I soberly believe that
Madame Alois, King Philip's sister, was precious above rubies in the
work.'

I