t to seize--flung his wits abroad; from that hour his was a lost
soul. Hungry, empty-eyed, ranging, feverish, he lashed up and down his
prison-room, with bare teeth gleaming, and desperate soft strides. No
thought he had but mere despair, no hope but the mere ravin of a beast.
He was across the room in four; he turned, he lunged back; at the wall
he threw up his head, turned and lunged, turned and lunged again. He was
always at it, or rocking on his bed. No hope, nor thought, nor reckoning
had he, but to say Yea against God, Who said him Nay.

So, many times, had he stood, fatal enemy of himself. His Yea would hold
fast while none accepted it, his Nay while no one obeyed. But the supple
knees of men sickened him of his own decree. 'These fools accept my
bidding: the bidding then is foolishness.' So when Fate, so when God,
underwrote his bill, _Le Roy le veult_, he scorned himself and the bill,
and risked wide heaven to make either nought.

If Austria had murdered him then, it had perhaps been well; but his
enemies being silenced, his friends did enemies' work unknowing, by
giving him scope to mar himself. The ransom was raised at the price of
blood and prayers, the ransom was paid. The Earl of Leicester and
Bishop of Salisbury brought it; so the Leopard was loosed. With a quick
shake of the head, as if doing violence to himself, he turned his face
westward and pushed through the Low Countries to the sea. There he was
met by his English peers, by Longchamp, by his brother of Rouen, by men
who loved and men who feared; but he had no word for any. Grim and
hungry he stalked through the lane they made him, on to the galley;
folded in his cloak there, lonely he paced the bridge. He was rowed to
the west with his eyes fixed always on the east, away from his kingdom
to where he supposed his longing to be. His mother met him at Dunwich:
it seemed he knew her not. 'My son, my son Richard,' she said as she
knelt to him. 'Get up, Madame,' he bid her; 'I have work to do.' He rode
savagely to London through the grey Essex flats; had himself crowned
anew; went north with a force to lay Lincolnshire waste; levelled
castles, exacted relentless punishment, exorbitant tribute, the last
acquittance. He set a red smudge over the middle of England, being
altogether in that country three months, a total to his name and reign
of a poor six. Then he left it for good and all, carrying away with him
grudging men and grudged money, and leaving be