“The Council of the Crusade sent him, my lord,” the baron answered, “but for what purpose he declined to account to me.”

“Well, it shall be looked into,” said Richard.  “So this envoy met with a wandering physician at Engaddi, ha!”

“Not so, my liege, but he met a Saracen Emir, who understood that Saladin should send his own leech to you.  He is attended as if he were a prince, and brings with him letters of credence from Saladin.”

Richard took the scroll and read.

“Hold, hold,” he said.  “I will have no more of this dog of a prophet. 
Yes, I will put myself in charge of this Hakim—­I will repay the noble
Soldan his generosity—­I will meet him in the field as he proposes. 
Haste, De Vaux, fetch the Hakim hither.”

Scarcely had De Vaux left the royal pavilion when the king, to soothe his impatience, sent a messenger to command the attendance of the Knight of the Leopard, that he might obtain an account of the cause of his absence from the camp.

“Hark thee, Sir Knight,” said the king, “I require you to remember that, as a principal member of the Christian League, I have a right to know the negotiations of my confederates.  Do me, therefore, the justice to tell me the purport of thine errand.”

“My lord,” replied the Scot, “I will speak the truth.  Be pleased, therefore, to know my charge was to propose through the medium of the hermit—­a holy man, respected and protected by Saladin himself—­the establishment of a lasting peace, and the withdrawing of our armies from Palestine.”

“Saint George!” said Richard.  “Ill as I have thought of them, I could not have dreamed of such dishonour.  On what conditions was this hopeful peace to be contracted?”

“They were not entrusted to me, my lord,” said Sir Kenneth.  “I delivered them sealed to the hermit.  Might I so far presume, my lord king, this discourse but heats your disease, the enemy from which Christendom dreads more evil than from armed hosts of infidels.”

“You can flatter, Sir Knight,” said the king, “but you escape me not.  Saw you my royal consort at Engaddi?”

“To my knowledge, no, my lord,” said Sir Kenneth in some perturbation.  “I beheld a choir of ladies do homage to a relic of the highest sanctity, but I saw not their faces.”

“I ask you,” said Richard, raising himself on his elbow, “as a knight and a gentleman, did you or did you not, know any lady amongst that band of worshippers?”

“My lord,” said Kenneth, not without much hesitation, “I might guess.”

“And I also might guess,” said the king, frowning sternly.  “But it is enough.  Leopard as you are, Sir Knight, beware o’ tempting the lion’s paw.  Enough—­begone!—­speed to De Vaux and send him hither with the Arabian physician.”

Richard, when the physician, accompanied by the Grand Master of the Templars, Montserrat, with De Vaux and the Knight of the Leopard, entered his apartment, immediately exclaimed: