The courtiers applauded this song as they did the other, all except Ivanhoe, who sat without changing a muscle of his features, until the King questioned him, when the knight, with a bow said “he thought he had heard something very like the air and the words elsewhere.”  His Majesty scowled at him a savage glance from under his red bushy eyebrows; but Ivanhoe had saved the royal life that day, and the King, therefore, with difficulty controlled his indignation.

“Well,” said he, “by St. Richard and St. George, but ye never heard this song, for I composed it this very afternoon as I took my bath after the melee.  Did I not, Blondel?”

Blondel, of course, was ready to take an affidavit that his Majesty had done as he said, and the King, thrumming on his guitar with his great red fingers and thumbs, began to sing out of tune and as follows:—­

     “Commandersof the faithful.

     “The Pope he is a happy man,
     His Palace is the Vatican,
     And there he sits and drains his can: 
     The Pope he is a happy man. 
     I often say when I’m at home,
     I’d like to be the Pope of Rome.

     “And then there’s Sultan Saladin,
     That Turkish Soldan full of sin;
     He has a hundred wives at least,
     By which his pleasure is increased: 
     I’ve often wished, I hope no sin,
     That I were Sultan Saladin.

     “But no, the Pope no wife may choose,
     And so I would not wear his shoes;
     No wine may drink the proud Paynim,
     And so I’d rather not be him: 
     My wife, my wine, I love I hope,
     And would be neither Turk nor Pope.”

“Encore!  Encore!  Bravo!  Bis!” Everybody applauded the King’s song with all his might:  everybody except Ivanhoe, who preserved his abominable gravity:  and when asked aloud by Roger de Backbite whether he had heard that too, said firmly, “Yes, Roger de Backbite; and so hast thou if thou darest but tell the truth.”

“Now, by St. Cicely, may I never touch gittern again,” bawled the King in a fury, “if every note, word, and thought be not mine; may I die in to-morrow’s onslaught if the song be not my song.  Sing thyself, Wilfrid of the Lanthorn Jaws; thou could’st sing a good song in old times.”  And with all his might, and with a forced laugh, the King, who loved brutal practical jests, flung his guitar at the head of Ivanhoe.

Sir Wilfrid caught it gracefully with one hand, and making an elegant bow to the sovereign, began to chant as follows:—­

“KingCanute.

“King Canute was weary-hearted; he had reigned for years a score, Battling, struggling, pushing, fighting, killing much and robbing more; And he thought upon his actions, walking by the wild sea-shore.

“’Twixt the Chancellor and Bishop walked the King with steps
sedate,
Chamberlains and grooms came after, silversticks and goldsticks
great,
Chaplains, aides-de-camp, and pages,—­all the officers of state.