It was just the question Saladin’s ci-devant owner desired to be asked, and he was on the eve of answering impressively, “Very much.” A reflection restraining him, he replied, in a careless indifferent way,—
“Well, I shouldn’t mind—if you care to part with him.”
“That would depend on what ye be willin’ to gie. How much?”
This was a puzzler. What had he to give? Nothing! At his capture they had stripped him clean, rifled his pockets, torn from his hat the jewelled clasp and egret’s plume—that trophy of sweet remembrance. Even since, in Monmouth gaol, they had made free with certain articles of his attire; so that he was not only unarmed and purseless, but rather shabbily dressed; anything but able to make purchase of a horse, however moderate the price.
Would the man take a promise of payment at some future time—his word for it? The proposal was made; a tempting sum offered, to be handed over soon as the would-be purchaser could have the money sent him by his friends; but rejected.
“That’s no dependence, an’ a fig for your friends?” was the coarse response of the sceptical trooper. “If ye can’t show no better surety for payin’, I hold on to the horse, an’ you maun go without him. ’Sides, Master Captain, what use the anymal to ye inside o’ a prison, where’s yer like to be shut up, Lord knows how long?”
“Ah, true!” returned the young officer, with a sigh, and look of apparent resignation. “Still, corporal,”—the man had a cheveron on his sleeve—“it’s killing work to ride such a brute as this. If only for the rest of the way to Hereford, I’d give something to exchange saddles with you.”
“If ye had it to gie, I dare say ye would,” rejoined the corporal, with a satirical grin, as he ran his eye over the bare habiliments of his prisoner. “But as ye han’t, what be the use palaverin’ ’bout it? Till ye can show better reezon for my accommodatin’ you, we’ll both stick to the saddles we be in.”
This seemed to clinch the question; and for a time Eustace Trevor was silent, feeling foiled. But before going much farther a remembrance came to his aid, which promised him a better mount than the Rosinante he was riding—in short, Saladin’s self. The wound he had received was a lance thrust in the left wrist—only a prick, but when done deluging the hand in blood. This running down his fingers had almost glued them together, and the kerchief hastily wrapped round had stayed there ever since, concealing a ring which, seen by any of the Cavalier soldiers, would have been quickly cribbed. None had seen it; he himself having almost forgotten the thing, till now, with sharpened wits, he recalled its being there; knew it to be worth the accommodation denied him, and likely to obtain it.
“Well, corporal,” he said, returning to the subject, “I should have liked a ride on the horse, if only for old times’ sake, and the little chance of my ever getting one again. But I’d be sorry to have you exchange without some compensation. Still, I fancy, I can give you that without drawing upon time.”