m. They are no men of mine. Their robes were all
white, their faces all dark, and they ran like Turks. But what can Turks
do here?'

'They must be found,' said Des Barres, and sent out Savaric with half of
his men.

They picked up Gilles, quite dead of two wounds, one in the back of the
neck, another below the heart. Des Barres put him over his saddlebow;
then took his prisoners into camp.

King Richard had been carried to his pavilion and put to bed. His
physicians were with him, and the Abbot Milo, quite unmanned. Gaston of
Bearn was crying like a girl at the door. The Earl of Leicester had
ridden off for the Queen, Yvo Tibetot for the Count of Mortain. Des
Barres learned that they had pulled out the arrow, a common one of
Genoese make, but feared poison. King Richard had been shot in the right
lung.

CHAPTER XVII

THE KEENING

In the wan hours left to him came three women, one after another, and
spoke the truth so far as they knew it each.

The first was Alois of France in the habit of a grey lady of
Fontevrault, with a face more dead than her cowl, and hair like wet
weed, but in her hollow eyes the fire of her mystery; who said to the
watchers by the door: 'Let me in. I am the voice of old sorrow.' So they
held back the curtains of the tent, and she came shuffling forward to
the long body on the bed. At the sound of her skirts the King turned his
altered face her way, then rolled his head back to the dark.

'Take her away,' he said in a whisper; so Des Barres stood up between
him and the woman.

But Alois put her hands out, as a blind man does.

'Soul's health, Des Barres; I purge old sins. Avoid, all of you,' she
said, 'and leave me with him. Save only his confessor. What I have to
say must be said in secret, as it was done secretly.'

Richard sighed. 'Let her stay; and let Milo stay,' he said. The rest
went out on tip-toe. Alois came and knelt at the head of the bed.

'Listen now, Richard,' said she; 'for thy last hour is near, and mine
also. Twice over I have sought to tell thee, but was denied. Each time
I might have done thee a service; now I will do thee good service. Thou
art not guilty of thy father's death, nor he of my despair.'

The King did not turn his head, but looked up sideways, so that she saw
his eye shining. His lips moved, then stuck together; so Milo put a
sponge with wine upon them. Then he whispered, 'Tell me, Alois, who was
guilty with thee?'

She said, 'Thy brother