Felix afterwards acknowledged these things to himself, but at the moment, full of admiration for the bravery of the four knights and their followers, he was full of indignation, and uttered his views too freely.  His fellow-grooms cautioned him; but his spirit was up, and he gave way to his feelings without restraint.  Now, to laugh at the king’s weaknesses, his gluttony or follies, was one thing; to criticise his military conduct was another.  The one was merely badinage, and the king himself might have laughed had he heard it; the other was treason, and, moreover, likely to touch the monarch on the delicate matter of military reputation.

Of this Felix quickly became aware.  His mates, indeed, tried to shield him; but possibly the citizen, his master, had enemies in the camp, barons, perhaps, to whom he had lent money, and who watched for a chance of securing his downfall.  At all events, early the next day Felix was rudely arrested by the provost in person, bound with cords, and placed in the provost’s booth.  At the same time, his master was ordered to remain within, and a guard was put over him.

CHAPTER XX

IN DANGER

Hope died within Felix when he thus suddenly found himself so near the executioner.  He had known so many butchered without cause, that he had, indeed, reason to despair.  Towards the sunset he felt sure he should be dragged forth and hanged on the oak used for the purpose, and which stood near where the track from Aisi joined the camp.  Such would most probably have been his fate, had he been alone concerned in this affair, but by good fortune he was able to escape so miserable an end.  Still, he suffered as much as if the rope had finished him, for he had no means of knowing what would be the result.

His heart swelled with bitterness; he was filled with inexpressible indignation, his whole being rebelled against the blundering, as it were, of events which had thus thrown him into the jaws of death.  In an hour or two, however, he sufficiently recovered from the shock to reflect that most probably they would give him some chance to speak for himself.  There would not be any trial; who would waste time in trying so insignificant a wretch?  But there might be some opportunity of speaking, and he resolved to use it to the utmost possible extent.

He would arraign the unskilful generalship of the king; he would not only point out his errors, but how the enemy could be defeated.  He would prove that he had ideas and plans worthy of attention.  He would, as it were, vindicate himself before he was executed, and he tried to collect his thoughts and to put them into form.  Every moment the face of Aurora seemed to look upon him, lovingly and mournfully; but beside it he saw the dusty and distorted features of the copse he had seen drawn by the horse through the camp.  Thus, too, his tongue would protrude and lick the dust.  He endured, in a word, those treble agonies which the highly-wrought and imaginative inflict upon themselves.