attend me," he said, "if you please, I go but to cut a rod from the next willow bush."

Prince John made a signal that some attendants should follow him in case of his escape; but the cry of "Shame! Shame!" which burst from the multitude, induced him to alter his ungenerous purpose.

Locksley returned almost instantly with a willow wand about six feet in length, perfectly straight, and rather thicker than a man's thumb. He began to peel this with great composure, observing, at the same time, that to ask a good woodsman to shoot at a target so broad as had hitherto been used, was to put shame upon his skill. "For his own part," he said, "and in the land where he was bred, men would as soon take for their mark King Arthur's round-table, which held sixty knights around it. A child of seven years old," he said, "might hit yonder target with a headless shaft;" but, added he, walking deliberately to the other end of the lists, and sticking the willow wand upright in the ground, "he that hits that rod at five-score yards, - I call him an archer fit to bear both bow and quiver before a king, and it were the stout King Richard himself."

"My grandsire," said Hubert, "drew a good bow at the battle of Hastings, and never shot at such a mark in his life, and neither will I. If this yeoman can cleave that rod, I give him the bucklers; a man can but do his best, and I will not shoot where I am sure to miss. I might as well shoot at the edge of our parson's whittle, or at a wheat straw, or at a sunbeam, as at a twinkling white streak which I can hardly see."

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Cowardly dog!" said Prince John. "Sirrah Locks

Howe'er it be, thou

ley, do thou shoot; but if thou hittest such a mark, I will say thou art the first man ever did so. shalt not crow over us with a mere show of superior skill." "I will do my best, as Hubert says," answered Locksno man can do more."

ley;

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So saying, he again bent his bow, but on the present occasion looked with attention to his weapon, and changed the string, which he thought was no longer truly round, having been a little frayed by the two former shots. He then took his aim with some deliberation, and the multitude awaited the event in breathless silence. The archer vindicated their opinion of his skill; his arrow split the willow rod against which it was aimed. A jubilee of acclamation followed; and even Prince John, in admiration of Locksley's skill, lost for an instant his dislike to his person. "These twenty nobles," he said, "which, with the bugle, thou hast fairly won, are thine own; we will make them fifty, if thou wilt take livery and service with us as a yeoman of our bodyguard, and be near to our person. For never did so strong a hand bend a bow, nor so true an eye direct a shaft."

"Pardon me, noble prince," said Locksley; "but I have vowed that, if ever I take service, it should be with your royal brother, King Richard. These twenty nobles I leave to Hubert, who has this day drawn as brave a bow as his grandsire did at Hastings. Had his modesty not refused the trial, he would have hit the wand as well as I." Hubert shook his head as he received with reluctance the bounty of the stranger; and Locksley, anxious to escape further observation, mixed with the crowd and was

seen no more.

R

ICHARD surveyed the Nubian in silence as he stood before him, his looks bent upon the ground, his arms folded on his bosom, with the appearance of a black marble statue of the most exquisite workmanship, waiting life from the touch of a Prometheus. The king of England, who, as it was emphatically said of his successor, Henry the Eighth, loved to look upon a man, was well pleased with the thews, sinews, and symmetry of him whom he now surveyed, and questioned him in the lingua Franca, “Art thou a pagan?”

The slave shook his head, and, raising his finger to his brow, crossed himself in token of his Christianity, then resumed his posture of motionless humility.

"A Nubian Christian, doubtless," said Richard," and mutilated of the organ of speech by these heathen dogs?" The mute again slowly shook his head, in token of negative, pointed with his forefinger to heaven, and then laid upon his own lips.

it

"I understand thee," said Richard; "thou dost suffer under the infliction of God, not by the cruelty of man. Canst thou clean an armor and belt, and buckle it in time of need?"

The mute nodded, and, stepping toward the coat of mail, which hung with the shield and helmet of the chivalrous monarch, upon the pillar of the tent, he handled it with such nicety of address, as sufficiently to show that he fully understood the business of the armor bearer.

"Thou art an apt, and wilt doubtless be a useful, knave. Thou shalt wait in my chamber, and on my person," said the king, "to show how much I value the gift of the royal Soldan. If thou hast no tongue, it follows thou canst carry no tales, neither provoke me to be sudden by an unfit reply."

The Nubian again prostrated himself till his brow touched the earth, then stood erect, at some paces distant, as waiting for his new master's commands.

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'Nay, thou shalt commence thy office presently," said Richard, "for I see a speck of rust darkening on that shield; and when I shake it in the face of Saladin, it should be bright and unsullied as the Soldan's honor and mine own."

A horn was winded without, and presently Sir Henry Neville entered with a packet of dispatches. "From England, my lord," he said, as he delivered it. "From England, - our own England!" repeated Richard, in a tone of melancholy enthusiasm. "Alas! They little think how hard their sovereign has been beset by sickness and sorrow, faint friends, and forward enemies." Then, opening the dispatches, he said hastily, "Ha! This comes from no peaceful land; they too have their feuds. Neville, begone; I must peruse these tidings alone, and at leisure."

Neville withdrew accordingly, and Richard was soon absorbed in the melancholy details which had been conveyed to him from England, concerning the factions that were tearing to pieces his native dominions, the disunion of his brothers, John and Geoffrey, and the quarrels of both with the High Justiciary Longchamp, Bishop of

Ely; the oppressions practiced by the nobles upon the peasantry, and rebellion of the latter against their masters which had produced every where scenes of discord, and in some instances the effusion of blood. Details of incidents mortifying to his pride, and derogatory from his authority, were intermingled with the earnest advice of his wisest and most attached counselors, that he should presently return to England, as his presence offered the only hope of saving the kingdom from all the horrors of civil discord, of which France and Scotland were likely to avail themselves.

Filled with the most painful anxiety, Richard read, and again read, the ill-omened letters, compared the intelligence which some of them contained with the same facts as differently stated in others, and soon became totally insensible to whatever was passing around him, although seated, for the sake of coolness, close to the entrance of his tent, and having the curtains withdrawn, so that he could see and be seen by the guards and others who were stationed without.

Deeper in the shadow of the pavilion, and busied with the task his new master had imposed, sat the Nubian slave, with his back rather turned toward the king. He had finished adjusting and cleaning the hauberk and brigandine, and was now busily employed on a broad pavise,1 or buckler, of unusual size, and covered with steel plating, which Richard often used in reconnoitering, or actually storming, fortified places, as a more effectual protection against missile weapons than the narrow triangular shield used on horseback.

1 Pavise: A shield large enough to protect the whole body.