"to the bad counsels of thee, and such as thee, Arthur Plantagenet owes all his sorrows and captivity. Ye have poisoned his ear against his kindred; ye have raised up in him ambitious thoughts that become him not; ye have taught him to think himself a king; and ye have cast him down from a prince to a prisoner."

John spoke loudly and angrily, and at the sound the door of the vault was pushed open, showing the form of a manat-arms about to enter, followed by several others. But the King waved them back with his hand, and turning to Arthur, he proceeded :—“Hearken to me, nephew! The way to free yourself, and to return to the bright world from which you are now cut off, is free and open before you.” 1

Arthur raised his head.

"Renounce your claim to kingdoms you shall never possess, and cast from you expectations you never can realise, and you shall be free to-morrow. I will restore to you your duchy of Brittany; I will give you a portion befitting a Plantagenet ; and I will treat you kindly as my brother's son. What would you more? You shall have the friendship and protection of the King of England.”

"I would rather have the enmity of the King of France," cried Arthur, starting up, as the long catalogue of all John's base perfidies rushed across his mind, coupled with the offer of his friendship. "I would rather have the enmity of the King of France! There is always some resource in the generosity of a true knight."

"Thou art a fool, stubborn boy!" cried John, his eye flashing, and his lip curling at his nephew's bold replythou art a stubborn fool! Are not the Kings of France the hereditary enemies of our race ?"

"Philip of France is my godfather in chivalry," replied Arthur, drawing somewhat nearer to De Coucy, as if for protection from the wrath that was gathering on his uncle's brow, "and I would rather place my confidence in him, 1 This conversation is reported by the chroniclers of the time to have taken place previous to Arthur's confinement in the Tower of Rouen.

than in one who wronged my uncle Richard, who wronged my father Geoffrey, and who has broken his word even in respect to me, by thrusting me into prison, when he promised his barons, as they themselves have told me, to leave me at liberty and to treat me well. He that breaks his word is no good knight, and I tell thee, John of Anjou, thou art false and forsworn!"

John lost his habitual command over his countenance in the excess of his wrath; and his features seemed actually to change under the vehemence of his passion. He set his teeth; he clenched his left-hand, as if he would have buried his finger-nails in the palm; and, thrusting his right under his crimson mantle, he evidently drew some weapon from its sheath. But at that moment, De Coucy, taking one stride in advance, opposed himself between the king and his nephew, and with his head thrown back, and his broad chest displayed, prepared at all risks to seize the tyrant, and dash him to atoms if he offered any violence to the unhappy youth that fortune had cast into his power.

John, however, possessed not the heart, even had he been armed in proof, to encounter a knight like De Coucy, though unarmed; and, sheathing again his dagger, he somewhat smoothed his look.

"By St. Paul!" he cried, taking pains, however, not to affect coolness too suddenly, lest the rapidity of the transition should betray its falseness, but carefully letting his anger appear to be slow in subsiding-" By St. Paul! Arthur Plantagenet, thou wilt drive me mad! Wert thou not my brother's son, I would strike thee with my dagger! I came to thee to give thee liberty, if this taste of imprisonment had taught thee to yield thy empty pretensions to a crown thou canst never win; and thou meetest me with abuse and insult. The consequences be on thine own head, minion. I have dungeons deeper than this, and chains that may weigh somewhat heavy on those frail limbs."

"Neither dungeons nor chains," replied the gallant boy firmly, "no, nor death itself, shall make me renounce my

rights of birth! You judge me cowardly, by the tears I shed but now; but I tell thee, that though I be worn with this close prison, and broken by sorrow, I fear not to meet death, rather than yield what I am bound in honour to maintain. England, Anjou, Guienne, Touraine, are mine in right of my father; Brittany comes to me from my mother, its heiress; and, even in the grave, my bones shall claim the land, and my tomb proclaim thee a usurper!"

"Ha! said John, "ha!" and there was a sneering accent on the last monosyllable that was but too fatally explained afterwards. "Be it as thou wilt, fair nephew," he added with a smile of dark and bitter meaning-" be it as thou wilt ;" and he was turning to leave the apartment.

"Hold, Sir, yet one moment!" cried De Coucy. "One word on my account. When I yielded my sword to William of Salisbury, your noble brother, it was under the express promise that I should be treated well and knightly; and he was bound, in delivering me to you, to make the same stipulation in my behalf. If he did do it, you have broken your word. If he did not do it, he has broken his; and one or other I will proclaim a false traitor in every court of Europe."

John heard him to an end; and then, after eyeing him from head to foot in silence, with an air of bitter triumphant contempt, he opened the door and passed out, without deigning to make the least reply. The door closed behind him-the heavy bolts were pushed forward-and Arthur and De Coucy once more stood alone, cut off from all the world.

The young captive gazed on his fellow-prisoner for a moment or two, with a glance in which the agitation of a weakened frame and a depressed mind might be traced struggling with a sense of dignity and firmness.

De Coucy endeavoured to console him; but the Prince raised his hand, with an imploring look, as if the very name of comfort were a mockery. "Have I acted well, Sir Knight?" he asked. "Have I spoken as became me?"

"Well and nobly, have you acted, fair Prince," replied

De Coucy, "with courage and dignity worthy your birth and station."

"That is enough then!" said Arthur-" that is enough!" and, with a deep and painful sigh, he cast himself again upon the seat; and, once more burying his face on his arms, let the day flit by him without even a change of position.

In the meanwhile, De Coucy, with his arms folded on his breast, paced up and down the vaulted chamber, revolving thoughts nearly as bitter as those of his fellow-captive. Mirabeau had proved as fatal to him as to Arthur. It had cast down his all. Arthur had struck for kingdoms, and he had struck for glory and fortune-the object of both, however, was happiness, though the means of the one was ambition; and of the other, love. Both had cast their all upon the stake, and both had lost. He too had to mourn then the passing away of his last hopes-the bright dream of love, and all the gay and delightful fabrics that imagination had built up upon its fragile base. They had fallen in ruins round him; and his heart sickened when he thought of all that a long captivity might effect in extinguishing the faint, faint glimmering of hope which yet shone upon his fate.

Thus passed the hours till night began to fall; and all the various noises of the town,-the shouts of the boatmen on the river, the trampling of the horses in the streets, the busy buzz of many thousand tongues, the cries of the merchants in the highways, and the rustling tread of all the passers to and fro, which during the day had risen in a confused hum to the chamber in which they were confined, died one by one away; and nothing was at length heard but the rippling of the waters of the Seine, then at high tide, washing against the very foundations of the tower.

It was now the hour at which a lamp was usually brought them; and Arthur raised his head, as if anxious for its coming.

"Enguerand is late to-night," said he, "but I forgot. I heard my uncle discharge him from his office. Perhaps the

new governor will not give us any light. Yet, hark! I hear his footstep. He is lighting the lantern in the passage."

He was apparently right, for steps approached, stopping twice, for a moment or two, as if to fulfil some customary duty, and then, coming nearer, they paused at the door of their prison. The bolts were withdrawn, and a stranger, bearing a lamp, presented himself. His face was certainly not very prepossessing, but it was not strikingly otherwise; and Arthur, who with a keen though timid eye, scanned every line in his countenance, was beginning in some degree to felicitate himself on the change of his jailer, when the stranger turned and addressed him in a low and somewhat unsteady voice.

"My Lord," said he, "you must follow me; as I am ordered to give you a better apartment. The Sire de Coucy must remain here till the upper chamber is prepared."

Fear instantly seized upon Arthur. "I will not leave him," cried he, running round the pillar, and clinging to De Coucy's arm. "This chamber is good enough; I want

no other."

"Your hand is not steady, sirrah," said De Coucy, taking the lamp from the man, and holding it to his pale face. Your lip quivers, and your cheek is as blanched as a Templar's gown."

"Tis the shaking fever I caught in the marshes by Du Clerc," replied the other; "but what has that to do with the business of Prince Arthur, Beau Sire?"

"Because we doubt foul play, varlet," replied De Coucy, "and you speak not with the boldness of good intent."

"If any ill were designed, either to you or to the Prince," replied the man more boldly, "'twould be easily accomplished, without such ceremony. A flight of arrows, shot through your doorway, would leave you both as dead as the saints in their graves."

"That is true too," answered De Coucy, looking to Arthur, who still clung close to his arm. "What say you,

my Prince?"