These were his rapid thoughts, and then he spoke.

“I make a promise, and will not revoke;

You are my judge in what is fit and right,

And I obey you—bid me love or fight;

Yet had I rather, so the act could meet

With your concurrence, not to play the cheat; 360

In a fair cause”——“Charles, fighting for your king,

Did you e’er judge the merits of the thing?

Show me a monarch who has cause like mine,

And yet what soldier would his cause decline?”