Felix was led inside the entrenchment, unbound, and commanded to stand upright. There was a considerable assembly of the greater barons anxious to see the trial of the money-lender, who, though present, was kept apart from Felix lest the two should arrange their defence. The king was sleeping on a couch outside the booth in the shade; he was lying on his back breathing loudly with open mouth. How different his appearance to the time when he sat on his splendid charger and reviewed his knights! A heavy meal had been succeeded by as heavy a slumber. No one dared to disturb him; the assembly moved on tiptoe and conversed in whispers. The experienced divined that the prisoners were certain to be condemned, for the king would wake with indigestion, and vent his uneasy sensations upon them. Full an hour elapsed before the king awoke with a snort and called for a draught of water. How Felix envied that draught! He had neither eaten nor drunk since the night previous; it was a hot day, and his tongue was dry and parched.
The citizen was first accused; he denied any treasonable designs or expressions whatever; as for the other prisoner, till the time he was arrested he did not even know he had been in his service. He was some stroller whom his grooms had incautiously engaged, the lazy scoundrels, to assist them. He had never even spoken to him; it the knave told the truth he must acknowledge this.
“How now,” said the king, turning to Felix; “what do you say?”
“It is true,” replied Felix, “he has never spoken to me nor I to him. He knew nothing of what I said. I said it on my own account, and I say it again!”
“And pray, sir knave,” said the king, sitting up on his couch, for he was surprised to hear one so meanly dressed speak so correctly, and so boldly face him. “What was it you did say?”
“If your majesty will order me a single drop of water,” said the prisoner, “I will repeat it word for word, but I have had nothing the whole day, and I can hardly move my tongue.”
Without a word the king handed him the cup from which he had himself drunk. Never, surely, was water so delicious. Felix drained it to the bottom, handed it back (an officer took it), and with one brief thought of Aurora, he said: “Your majesty, you are an incapable commander.”
“Go on,” said the king sarcastically; “why am I incapable?”
“You have attacked the wrong city; these three are all your enemies, and you have attacked the first. They stand in a row.”
“They stand in a row,” repeated the king; “and we will knock them over like three nine-pins.”
“But you have begun with the end one,” said Felix, “and that is the mistake. For after you have taken the first you must take the second, and still after that the third. But you might have saved much trouble and time if——”
“If what?”
“If you had assaulted the middle one first. For then, while the siege went on, you would have been able to prevent either of the other two towns from sending assistance, and when you had taken the first and put your garrison in it, neither of the others could have stirred, or reaped their corn, nor could they even communicate with each other, since you would be between them; and in fact you would have cut your enemies in twain.”
“By St. John!” swore the king, “it is a good idea. I begin to think—but go on, you have more to say.”
“I think, too, your majesty, that by staying here as you have done this fortnight past without action, you have encouraged the other two cities to make more desperate resistance; and it seems to me that you are in a dangerous position, and may at any moment be overwhelmed with disaster, for there is nothing whatever to prevent either of the other two from sending troops to burn the open city of Aisi in your absence. And that danger must increase every day as they take courage by your idleness.”
“Idleness! There shall be idleness no longer. The man speaks the truth; we will consider further of this, we will move on Adelinton,” turning to his barons.
“If it please your majesty,” said Baron Ingulph, “this man invented a new trigger for our carriage crossbows, but he was lost in the crowd, and we have sought for him in vain; my serjeant here has this moment recognised him.”
“Why did you not come to us before, fellow?” said the king. “Let him be released; let him be entertained at our expense; give him clothes and a sword. We will see you further.”
Overjoyed at this sudden turn of fortune, Felix forgot to let well alone. He had his audience with him for a moment; he could not resist as it were following up his victory. He thanked the king, and added that he could make a machine which would knock the walls yonder to pieces without it being necessary to approach nearer than half a bow-shot.
“What is this?” said the king. “Ingulph, have you ever heard of such a machine?”
“There is no such thing,” said the Baron, beginning to feel that his professional reputation as the master of the artillery was assailed. “There is nothing of the kind known.”
“It will shoot stones as big, as heavy as a man can lift,” said Felix eagerly, “and easily knock towers to fragments.”
The king looked from one to another; he was incredulous. The Baron smiled scornfully. “Ask him, your majesty, how these stones are to be thrown; no bow could do it.”
“How are the stones to be thrown?” said the king sharply. “Beware how you play with us.”
“By the force of twisted ropes, your majesty.”
They all laughed. The Baron said: “You see, your majesty, there is nothing of the kind. This is some jester.”
“The twisted rope should be a halter,” said another courtier, one of those who hoped for the rich man’s downfall.
“It can be done, your majesty,” cried Felix, alarmed. “I assure you, a stone of two hundredweight might be thrown a quarter of a mile.”
The assembly did not repress its contempt.
“The man is a fool,” said the king, who now thought that Felix was a jester who had put a trick upon him. “But your joke is out of joint; I will teach such fellows to try tricks on us! Beat him out of camp.”
The provost’s men seized him, and in a moment he was dragged off his feet, and bodily carried outside the entrenchment. Thence they pushed him along, beating him with the butts of their spears to make him run the faster; the groups they passed laughed and jeered; the dogs barked and snapped at his ankles. They hurried him outside the camp, and thrusting him savagely with their spear butts sent him headlong. There they left him, with the caution which he did not hear, being insensible, that if he ventured inside the lines he would be at once hanged. Like a dead dog they left him on the ground.
Some hours later, in the dusk of the evening, Felix stole from the spot, skirting the forest like a wild animal afraid to venture from its cover, till he reached the track which led to Aisi. His one idea was to reach his canoe. He would have gone through the woods, but that was not possible. Without axe or wood-knife to hew a way, the tangled brushwood he knew to be impassable, having observed how thick it was when coming. Aching and trembling in every limb, not so much with physical suffering as that kind of inward fever which follows unmerited injury, the revolt of the mind against it, he followed the track as fast as his weary frame would let him. He had tasted nothing that day but the draught from the king’s cup, and a second draught when he recovered consciousness, from the stream that flowed past the camp. Yet he walked steadily on without pause; his head hung forward, and his arms were listless, but his feet mechanically plodded on. He walked, indeed, by his will, and not with his sinews. Thus, like a ghost, for there was no life in him, he traversed the shadowy forest.