Just now I saw the English ambassador, Earl
Gilbert, in the King's suite."

Rinaldo was thunderstruck.

"At last," he cried, "I have the clue to the mystery. But it is strange
that the negotiation between Alexander and England should have escaped
our notice. I can scarcely believe it possible."

"It was entirely out of my calculation," said Henry, trying to console
the statesman. "The English king, whose character you all know, has
pursued a course which no one suspected, but which probably has been
long in preparation. It is certain that he is not marching merely to
Alexander's assistance, but against the Imperial supremacy."

"It is really absurd! As if a feeble gazelle could struggle against a
tiger," said Dassel. "Let us go at once to the Emperor; he must hear it
from your own mouth."

The Count was in no hurry, for he looked at the question in a different
light.

"My personal safety forbids it," he said. "I have done all I could; I
supported the Emperor; but it would be madness in me to give the
English King a pretext for seizing my domains. For the time being, I
can only be a secret ally of Frederic."

"What! Count, you think to serve two masters?" cried Dassel, furiously.
"How can you be at the same time the friend and the enemy of the
Emperor?"

The Count admitted the dilemma, but no entreaties could change his
determination.

"It cannot be, my lord; I must no longer delay my return to Laon.
Farewell; present my homage to the Emperor."

He sprang into the saddle and rode towards the city.

"Ah! these falsehearted Frenchmen!" said the Chancellor; "but it is
well; our arms will teach them honor and conscience."

"That is my advice too," said the fighting Bishop Werner; "German
honesty, which more than once has been the dupe of its own rectitude,
is well known. Let us go to the camp at once, raise our standards, and
reap a new harvest of laurels in the heart of France."

The nobles returned to the Imperial camp, where they found their
sovereign surrounded by his princes and bishops. The startling
intelligence of the change in the French policy, and the movements of
the English King, amazed every one. A few, among whom were the fierce
Otho of Wittelsbach and the schismatical bishops of the Empire, were in
favor of crossing the frontier at once. But the Dukes of Austria,
Saxony, and Bavaria, and some others, who were secret partisans of
Alexander, took the matter with the greatest coolness.

Barbar