"I delivered them sealed to the hermit." "And for what hold you this reverend hermit--for fool, madman, traitor, or saint ?" said Richard.
"His folly, sire," replied the shrewd Scottish man, "I hold to be assumed to win favour and reverence from the Paynimrie, who regard madmen as the inspired of Heaven--at least it seemed to me as exhibited only occasionally, and not as mixing, like natural folly, with the general tenor of his mind." "Shrewdly replied," said the monarch, throwing himself back on his couch, from which he had half-raised himself.

"Now of his penitence ?" "His penitence," continued Kenneth, "appears to me sincere, and the fruits of remorse for some dreadful crime, for which he seems, in his own opinion, condemned to reprobation." "And for his policy ?" said King Richard.
"Methinks, my lord," said the Scottish knight, "he despairs of the security of Palestine, as of his own salvation, by any means short of a miracle--at least, since the arm of Richard of England hath ceased to strike for it." "And, therefore, the coward policy of this hermit is like that of these miserable princes, who, forgetful of their knighthood and their faith, are only resolved and determined when the question is retreat, and rather than go forward against an armed Saracen, would trample in their flight over a dying ally!" "Might I so far presume, my Lord King," said the Scottish knight, "this discourse but heats your disease, the enemy from which Christendom dreads more evil than from armed hosts of infidels." The countenance of King Richard was, indeed, more flushed, and his action became more feverishly vehement, as, with clenched hand, extended arm, and flashing eyes, he seemed at once to suffer under bodily pain, and at the same time under vexation of mind, while his high spirit led him to speak on, as if in contempt of both.
"You can flatter, Sir Knight," he said, "but you escape me not.

I must know more from you than you have yet told me.

Saw you my royal consort when at Engaddi ?" "To my knowledge--no, my lord," replied Sir Kenneth, with considerable perturbation, for he remembered the midnight procession in the chapel of the rocks.
"I ask you," said the King, in a sterner voice, "whether you were not in the chapel of the Carmelite nuns at Engaddi, and there saw Berengaria, Queen of England, and the ladies of her Court, who went thither on pilgrimage ?" "My lord," said Sir Kenneth, "I will speak the truth as in the confessional.

In a subterranean chapel, to which the anchorite conducted me, I beheld a choir of ladies do homage to a relic of the highest sanctity; but as I saw not their faces, nor heard their voices, unless in the hymns which they chanted, I cannot tell whether the Queen of England was of the bevy." "And was there no one of these ladies known to you ?" Sir Kenneth stood silent.
"I ask you," said Richard, raising himself on his elbow, "as a knight and a gentleman--and I shall know by your answer how you value either character--did you, or did you not, know any lady amongst that band of worshippers ?" "My lord," said Kenneth, not without much hesitation, "I might guess." "And I also may guess," said the King, frowning sternly; "but it is enough.