He rode on. The day was burning and oppressive. The hot mid-day sun struck scorching on its brow, and his eyes became wild and bloodshot; but still he rode on, as if he felt in no degree anything that passed without the dark chamber of his own bosom. De Coucy's page had hastened for his horse when he found the count about to depart, and had galloped after. Seeing at length that his thoughts were occupied in other matters, and that he held the letter he had received, crushed together in his hand, Ermold De Marcy made bold to spur forward his weary beast, and approaching D'Auvergne to say, "Is there any hope, my lord, of your being able, in this matter, to relieve sir Guy?"
"Sir Guy!" cried D'Auvergne, suddenly checking his horse in full career, and gazing in the page's face with an anxious, thoughtful look, as if he strove with effort to recollect his ideas, and fix them on the subject brought before him--"Sir Guy! What of sir Guy! Who is sir Guy?"
"Do you not remember me, beau sire?" asked the page, astonished at the wild, unsettled look of a man whose fixed, stern, immoveable coldness of expression had often been a matter of wonder to the light, volatile youth, whose own thoughts and feelings changed full fifty times a day--"do you know me, beau sire?" he asked. "I am Ermold de Marcy, the page of sir Guy de Coucy, who now lies in English bonds, as that letter informs you."
"De Coucy in bonds!" cried the count, starting. Then, after gazing for a moment or two in the page's face, he added slowly, "Ay!--Yes!--True! Some one told me of it before, methinks. In bonds! I will march and deliver him!"
"Alas! my lord!" answered the page, "all the powers in France would not deliver him by force. He is in the hands of the English army, full fifty thousand strong; and it is only by paying his ransom, I may hope to see my noble lord freed."
"You shall pay his ransom," replied D'Auvergne--"yes, you shall pay his ransom. How much does the soldan ask?"
"'Tis the English king who holds him, my lord," answered the page; "not the soldan. We are in France, beau sire, not in Palestine."
"Not in Palestine, fool!" cried the count, frowning as if the page sought to mock him. "Feel I not the hot sun burning on my brow? And yet," he continued, looking round, "I believe thou art right.--But the ransom, what does the soldan require.--De Coucy!--the noble De Coucy!--to think of his ever being a prisoner to those infidel Saracens! What does the miscreant soldan demand?"
Surprised and shocked at what he beheld, the page paused for a moment till D'Auvergne repeated his question. Then, however, seeing that it would be a vain attempt to change the current of the count's thoughts, he replied, "I do not know, my lord, precisely; but I should suppose they would never free a knight of his renown under a ransom of ten thousand crowns."
"Ten thousand crowns!" cried D'Auvergne, his mind getting more and more astray every moment, under the effort and excitement of conversation, "thou shalt have double! Then with the remainder thou shalt buy thee a flock of sheep, and find out some valley in the mountains, where nor man nor woman ever trod; there shalt thou hide thee with thy sheep, till age whitens thee, and death strikes thee. Thou shalt! thou shalt, I tell thee, that the records of the world may say there was once a man who lived and died in peace. But come to Jerusalem! Come! and thou shalt have the gold. For me, I am bound by a holy vow to do penance in solitude amongst the green woods of Mount Libanus. Follow quick! follow! and thou shalt have the gold."