"Ah, King!" was the glad welcome "The prophet David did make
himself a fool, and suffered spittle to fall upon his beard, to
escape from the hands of his enemies And there was Brutus, ay,
and others as memorable who have descended to such artifice."
Though he laughed, it is clear that he was seeking to excuse an
unworthiness of which he was conscious.
"Artifice?" quoth King, aghast. "Is this artifice?"
"Ay--a hedge against my enemies, who will be afraid to approach
me."
King sat himself down by his master's bed. "A better hedge
against your enemies, Sir Walter, would have been the strip of
sea 'twixt here and France. Would to Heaven you had done as I
advised ere you set foot in this ungrateful land."
"The omission may be repaired," said Sir Walter.
Before the imminence of his peril, as now disclosed to him, Sir
Walter had been reconsidering De Chesne's assurance touching my
Lords of Arundel and Pembroke, and he had come to conclude--the
more readily, perhaps because it was as he would have it--that De
Chesne was right; that to break faith with them were no such
great matter after all, nor one for which they would be called
upon to suffer. And so, now, when it was all but too late, he
yielded to the insistence of Captain King, and consented to save
himself by flight to France.
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