Part 20

El Aaziz, an Arabic phrase for "the excellent" or "most noble one."

Apulia--Southern Italy.

The Sirocco is a fierce south-easterly wind of Sicily and the Mediterranean.

VII.

HARRY OF MONMOUTH: THE BOY GENERAL.

(Afterward King Henry the Fifth of England.)

A tapestried chamber in the gray old pile known as Berkhampstead Castle. The bright sunlight of an early English spring streaming through the latticed window plays upon the golden head of a fair young maid of ten, who, in a quaint costume of gold-striped taffeta and crimson velvet, looks in evident dismay upon the antics of three merry boys circling around her, as she sits in a carved and high-backed oaken chair. In trim suits of crimson, green, and russet velvet, with curious hanging sleeves and long, pointed shoes, they range themselves before the trembling little maiden, while the eldest lad, a handsome, lithe, and active young fellow of fourteen, sings in lively and rollicking strain:

"Oh, I am King Erik of Denmark, Tarran, tarran, tarra! Oh, I am King Erik of Denmark, Tarran, tarran, tarra! Oh, I am King Erik of Denmark shore-- A frosty and crusty old Blunderbore-- With ships and knights a-sailing o'er, To carry Philippa to Elsinore!"

And then with a rousing shout the three boys swooped down upon the beleaguered little damsel and dragged her off to the dim stone staircase that led to the square tower of the keep.

"Have done, have done, Harry," pleaded the little girl as she escaped from her captors. "Master Lionel, thou surely shouldst defend a princess in distress."

"Ay, Princess, but our tutor, Master Rothwell, says that I am to obey my Liege and Prince, and him alone," protested gay young Lionel, "and sure he bade me play the trumpeter of King Erik."

"A plague on King Erik," cried Philippa, seeking refuge behind the high-backed chair. "I wish I had ne'er heard of him and his kingdom of Denmark. O Harry! nurse Joanna tells me that they do eat but frozen turnips and salted beef in his dreadful country, and that the queen-mother, Margaret, wears a gambison and hauberk like to a belted knight."

"Why, of course she does," assented the mischievous Harry; and, drawing a solemn face he added: "Yes--and she eats a little girl, boiled with lentils, every saint's day as a penance. That's why they want an English wife for Erik, for, seest thou, there are so many saints' days that there are not left in Denmark wee damsels enough for the queen's penance."

But the sight of pretty Philippa's woful tears stayed her brother's teasing.

"There, there," he said, soothingly; "never mind my fun, Philippa. This Erik is not so bad a knight I'll warrant me, and when thou art Queen of Denmark, why, I shall be King of England, and my trumpeter, Sir Lionel here, shall sound a gallant defiance as I come

"'Sailing the sea to Denmark shore With squires and bowmen a hundred score, If ever this frosty old Blunderbore Foul treateth Philippa at Elsinore,'

and thus will we gallop away with the rescued queen," he added, as seizing Philippa in his arms he dashed around the room followed by his companions. But while the four were celebrating, in a wild dance of "all hands around," the fancied rescue of the misused queen, the tapestry parted and Sir Hugh de Waterton, the governor of the king's children, entered.

"My lord Prince," he said, "the king thy father craves thy presence in the council-room."

"So; I am summoned," said the Prince; "good Sir Hugh, I will to the king at once. That means 'good-by,' Sis; for to-morrow I am off to the Welsh wars to dance with the lords-marchers and Owen Glendower, to a far different strain. Yield not to these leaguering Danes, Philippa, but if thou dost, when I am back from the Welsh wars, I'll hie me over sea

"'With golden nobles in goodly store To ransom Philippa at Elsinore,'"

and, kissing his sister fondly, Harry of Monmouth, Prince of Wales, parted the heavy arras and descended to the council-room.

* * * * *

And now the scene changes. Months have passed since that jolly romp in the old castle, among the hills of Hertfordshire, and under a wet and angry sky we stand within the king's tent, glad to escape from the driving storm.

To young Lionel Langley, as he peeped through the outer curtains of the tent and watched the floods of rain, it seemed as if all the mountains in the shires of Brecon and Radnor had turned themselves into water-spouts to drench and drown the camp of the English invaders, as it lay soaked and shivering there in the marches of Wales. King Henry's tent, we learn from an old chronicle, was "picchid on a fayre playne," but Lionel thought it any thing but fair as he turned from the dismal prospect.

"Rain, rain, rain," he grumbled, throwing himself down by the side of stout Humfrey Wallys, archer in the king's guard; "why doth it always rain in this fateful country? Why can it not blow over? Why,--why must we stay cooped up under these soaking tent-tops, with ne'er a sight of fun or fighting?"

"Ah, why, why, why?" said the good-natured archer, "'t is ever why? with thee, Sir Questioner. But, if thou be riddling, ask us something easier. Why doth a cow lie down? Why is it fool's fun to give alms to a blind man? How many calves' tails doth it take to reach to the moon?"

"H'm," grunted Lionel, "thy riddles be as stale as Michaelmas mutton. I can answer them all."

"So--canst thou, young shuttle-brain?" cried the archer, "then, by the mass, thou shalt. Answer now, answer," he demanded, as he tripped up young Lionel's feet and pinned him to the ground with a pikestaff, "answer, or I will wash thy knowing face in my sack-leavings. Why doth a cow lie down?"