Amiens; but their
leader, according to the promise which he made me, he handed over to me
as my share of the day's booty, giving me every charge that he should
receive good and knightly treatment.

"Which, no doubt, you will observe," the other said, with an ugly laugh.

"It is a bad business," the knight exclaimed angrily, "and were it not
for our friendship, in Spain, and the memory of sundry deeds which we
did together, not without profit to our purses, I would rather that you
were thrown over the battlements into the river than I had taken a step
in this business. However, none can say that Phillip of Holbeaut ever
deserted a friend who had proved true to him, not to mention that the
sum which you promised me for my aid in this matter will, at present
time, prove wondrously convenient. Yet I foresee that it will bring me
into trouble with the Count of Evreux. Ere many days a demand will come
for the fellow to be delivered on ransom."

"And what will you say?" the other asked.

"I shall say what is the truth," the knight replied, "though I may add
something that is not wholly so. I shall say that he was drowned in the
Somme. I shall add that it happened as he was trying to make his escape,
contrary to the parole he had given; but in truth he will be drowned
in the dungeon in which I have placed him, which has rid me of many a
troublesome prisoner before now. The river is at ordinary times but two
feet below the loophole; and when its tide is swelled by rain it often
rises above the sill, and then there is an end of any one within.
They can doubt my word; but there are not many who would care to do so
openly; none who would do so for the sake of an unknown English knight.
And as for any complaints on the part of the Black Prince, King Phillip
has shown over and over again how little the complaints of Edward
himself move him."

"It were almost better to knock him on head at once," the other said
thoughtfully; "the fellow has as many lives as a cat.

"If he had as many as nine cats," the knight replied, "it would not
avail him. But I will have no violence. The water will do your work as
well as a poinard, and I will not have it said, even among such ruffians
as mine, that I slew a captured knight. The other will pass as an
accident, and I care not what my men may think as long as they can say
nothing for a surety. The count may storm as much as he will, and may
even lay a complaint against me before the king; but