'Pardon my ignorance, noble demoiselle,' said he, 'and vouchsafe, I pray you, to inform me where I now am; for I own to you that I am somewhat perplexed.'

'You are in Damietta.'

'In Damietta!' exclaimed Walter, astonished; 'and how came I to Damietta? My latest recollection is having been struck from my steed at Mansourah, after my lord, the Earl of Salisbury, and all the English warriors, had fallen before the weapons of the Saracens; and how I come to be in Damietta is more than I can guess.'

'Mayhap; but I can tell you,' said a frank hearty voice; and, as Walter started at the sound, Bisset, the English knight, stood before him; and Adeline de Brienne, not without casting a kindly look behind, vanished from the chamber.

'Wonder upon wonders,' cried Walter, as the knight took his hand; 'I am now more bewildered than before. Am I in Damietta, and do I see you, and in the body?'

'Even so,' replied Bisset; 'and for both circumstances we are wholly indebted to Beltran, the Christian renegade. He saved you from perishing at Mansourah, and conveyed you down the Nile, and brought you to the portal of this palace; and he came to me when I was at Minieh under a tree, sinking with fatigue, and in danger of bleeding to death; and he found the means of conveying me hither also; so I say that, were he ten times a renegade, he merits our gratitude.'

'Certes,' said Walter, 'and, methinks, also our prayers that his heart may be turned from the error of his ways, and that he may return to the faith which Christians hold.'

'Amen,' replied Bisset.

'But tell me, sir knight,' continued Walter, eagerly, what has happened, since that dreadful day, to the pilgrim army? and if you know aught of my brother-in-arms, Guy Muschamp?'

'Sir squire,' answered Bisset, sadly; 'for your first question, I grieve to say, that has come to pass which I too shrewdly predicted—all the boasting of the French has ended in disaster—the king and his nobles being prisoners, and most of the other pilgrims slain or drowned; and, for your second, as to Guy Muschamp, the English squire, who was a brave and gallant youth, I own I entertain hardly a doubt that, ere this, he is food for worms or fishes.'