“Sayst thou?” exclaimed the Prince, hastily laying aside his writing materials. “Fear not, mi Dona, I will return anon and tell thee how it is. We are in smoother water already.”
“So much smoother that I will come with thee out of this stifling cabin,” said Eleanor. “O would that we had been in time for thee to have counselled thine uncles—”
“We will see what we have to grieve for ere we bemoan ourselves,” said the Prince. “My good uncle of France would put his whole fleet in mourning for one barefooted friar!”
“Depend on it, my Lord, ’tis mourning for something in earnest,” interposed Dame Iduna; “I said it was not for nothing that a single pyot came and rocked up his ill-omened tail while we were taking horse for this expedition, and my Lady there was kissing the little ones at home, nor that a hare ran over our road at Bagshot—”
“Well, Dame,” interposed the Prince good-humouredly, seeing his wife somewhat affected by the list of omens, “I know you have a horse-shoe in your luggage, so you will come safe off, whoever does not!”
“And what matters what my luck is,” returned the Dame, “an old beldame such as me, so long as you and your brother come off safe, and find the blessed princes at home well and sound? Would that we were out of this sandy hole, or that any one would resolve me why we cannot go straight to Jerusalem when we are about it!”
The Dame had delayed them while she spoke, in order to adjust the Princess’s muffler over her somewhat dishevelled locks; but Eleanor seeing that her husband was impatient, put a speedy end to her operations, and took his arm.
Meantime the vessel had come within the Gulf of Goletta, and others of the passengers had revived, and were standing on deck to watch their entrance into the very harbour that two thousand years before had sheltered the storm-tossed fleet of Æneas; but if the Trojan had there found a wooded haven, the groves and sylvan shades must long since have been destroyed, for to the new-comers the bay appeared inclosed by spits of sand, though there was a rising ground in front that cut off the view. In the centre of the bay was a low sandy islet, covered with remains of masonry, and with a fort in the midst. On this was mounted the French banner, but likewise drooping; and all around it lay the ships with furled sails and trailing ensigns, giving them an inexpressibly mysterious look of woe, like living creatures with folded wings and vailed crests, lying on the face of the waters in a silent sleep of sorrow. There was an awe of suspense that kept each one on the deck silent, unable to utter the conjecture that weighed upon his breast.
A boat was already putting off, and its quick movements seemed to mar the solemn stillness, as, impelled by the regular strokes of a dozen dark handsome Genoese mariners with gaily-tinted caps, it shot towards the vessel. A Genoese captain in graver garb sat at the helm, and as they came alongside, a whisper, almost a shudder, seemed to thrill upwards from the boat to the crew, and through them to the passengers, “Il Rè!” “il Rè santo,” “il Rè di Francia.” It seemed to have pervaded the whole ship even before the Genoese had had time to take the rope flung to him and to climb up the ship’s side, where as his fellow-captain greeted him, he asked hastily for the Principe Inglese.
For Edward had not come forward, but was standing with his back against the mainmast, with colourless cheek and eyes set and fixed. Eleanor looked up to him in silence, aware that he was mastering vehement agitation, and would endure no token of sympathy or sorrow that would unnerve him when dignity required firmness. To him, Louis IX., the husband of his mother’s sister, had been the guiding friend and noble pattern denied to him in his father; and Eleanor, intrusted to his uncle’s care during the troubles of England, a maiden wife in her first years of womanhood, had been formed and moulded by that holy and upright influence. To both the loss was as that of a father; and the murmur among the sailors was to them as a voice saying, “Knowest thou that God will take away thy master from thy head to-day?” For the moment, however, the Princess’s sole thought was how her husband would bear it, and she watched anxiously till the struggle was over, in the space of a few seconds, and he met the Genoese with his usual reserved courtesy; and returning his salutation, signed to him to communicate his tidings.