God!" said one of them in the ensuing stillness, and it was he who
bled the most, "that was a felon's blow."

But the dying man who lay before them made as though to smile. "I
charge you all to witness," he faintly said, "how willingly I render
to Caesar's daughter that which was ever hers."

Then Exton fretted, as if with a little trace of shame: "Who would
have thought the rascal had remembered that first wife of his so long?
Caesar's daughter, saith he! and dares in extremis to pervert Holy
Scripture like any Wycliffite! Well, he is as dead as that first
Caesar now, and our gracious King, I think, will sleep the better for
it. And yet--God only knows! for they are an odd race, even as he
said--these men that have old Manuel's blood in them."

THE END OF THE SEVENTH NOVEL

VIII

THE STORY OF THE SCABBARD

"Ainsi il avait trouve sa mie
Si belle qu'on put souhaiter.
N'avoit cure d'ailleurs plaider,
Fors qu'avec lui manoir et estre.
Bien est Amour puissant et maistre."

THE EIGHTH NOVEL.--BRANWEN OF WALES GETS A KING'S LOVE UNWITTINGLY,
AND IN ALL INNOCENCE CONVINCES HIM OF THE LITTLENESS OF HIS KINGDOM;
SO THAT HE BESIEGES AND IN DUE COURSE OCCUPIES ANOTHER REALM AS YET
UNMAPPED.

_The Story of the Scabbard_

In the year of grace 1400 (Nicolas begins) King Richard, the second
monarch of that name to rule in England, wrenched his own existence,
and nothing more, from the close wiles of his cousin, Harry of Derby,
who was now sometimes called Henry of Lancaster, and sometimes
Bolingbroke. The circumstances of this evasion having been recorded in
the preceding tale, it suffices here to record that this Henry was
presently crowned King of England in Richard's place. All persons,
saving only Owain Glyndwyr and Henry of Lancaster, believed King
Richard dead at that period when Richard attended his own funeral, as
a proceeding taking to the fancy, and, among many others, saw the body
of Edward Maudelain interred with every regal ceremony in the chapel
at Langley Bower. Then alone Sire Richard crossed the seas, and at
thirty-three set out to inspect a transformed and gratefully
untrammelling world wherein not a foot of land belonged to him.

Holland was the surname he assumed, the name of his half-brothers; and
to detail his Asian wanderings would be tedious and unprofitable. But
at the end of each four months would come to him a certain messenger
from Glyndwyr, supposed by Richard to be