Then sounds of wrangling were heard below, and Walter roused himself to go down and interfere.  The men were disputing over some miserable dregs of wine at the bottom of a skin.  Walter shouted to call them to order, but they paid little heed.

“Do not meddle and make, young sir,” said a low-browed, swarthy fellow.  “There’s plenty of cool drink of the right sort out there.”

“Traitor!” cried Walter; “better die than yield.”

“If one have no mind for dying like an old crab in a rock,” said the man.

“They would think nought of making an end of us out there,” said another.

“I’d as lief be choked at once by a cord as by thirst,” was the answer.

“That you are like to be, if you talk such treason,” threatened Walter.  “Seize him, Richard—­Martin.”

Richard and Martin, however, hung back, one muttering that Gil had done nothing, and the other that he might be in the right of it; and when Walter burst out in angry threats he was answered in a gruff voice that he had better take care what he said, “There was no standing not only wasting with thirst and hunger, but besides being blustered at by a hot-headed lad, that scarce knew a hauberk from a helmet.”

Walter, in his rage, threw himself with drawn sword on the mutineer, but was seized and dragged back by half a dozen stalwart arms, such as he had no power to resist, and he was held fast amid rude laughs and brutal questions whether he should thus be carried to the Saracens, and his sister with him.

“The old Sheik would give a round sum for a fair young damsel like her!” were the words that maddened her brother into a desperate struggle, baffled with a hoarse laugh by the men-at-arms, who were keeping him down, hand and foot, when a new voice sounded:  “How now, fellows!  What’s this?”

In one moment Walter was released and on his feet, and the men fell back, ashamed and gloomy, as a sturdy figure, with sun-browned face, light locks worn away by the helmet, and slightly grizzled, stood among them, in a much-rubbed and soiled chamois leather garment.

Walter broke out into passionate exclamations; the men, evidently ashamed, met them with murmurs and growls.  “Bad enough, bad enough!” broke in Sigbert; “but there’s no need to make it worse.  Better to waste with hunger and thirst than be a nidering fellow—­ rising against your lord in his distress.”

“We would never have done it if he would have kept a civil tongue.”

“Civility’s hard to a tongue dried up,” returned Sigbert.  “But look you here, comrades, leave me a word with my young lord here, and I plight my faith that you shall have enow to quench your thirst within six hours at the least.”

There was an attempt at a cheer, broken by the murmur, “We have heard enough of that!  It is always six hours and six hours.”

“And the Saracen hounds outside would at least give us a draught of water ere they made away with us,” said another.