Part 13

"I doubt if you could do as much, younker," he growled.

Hildebrand only laughed.

"Do you think because I am feathered like a bird-of-paradise that I have no sap in me? Let me handle your chin-chopper."

Still smiling, he took the sword from Theron, who watched him contemptuously. Hildebrand, to his surprise, lifted the sword easily with one hand, played with it as if it were no heavier than a staff of wood, threw it lightly from his right hand to his left hand and back again, and then returned it to Theron, from whose face contempt had vanished.

"'Tis finely poised," Hildebrand commented, "but something light for its purpose; yet it will serve its turn. Away!"

"Do you accompany me?" Theron asked, with more respect than he had yet shown to the King's man.

Hildebrand shook his head.

"Not I, old man. I say a prayer or two in the chapel by the side of my liege lord that I may return with a smooth soul to Syracuse. Farewell." He turned away and walked towards the chapel.

Shouldering his sword, the old man tramped down the mountain towards the city.

THE HUNTER

When he was well on his way the King came quietly out of the wood and approached his favorite.

"Was there ever a greater king than I, Hildebrand?" he asked.

"Never since sun-birth," Hildebrand responded, with glib emphasis. "The glory of Solomon, the sword of Cæsar, the beauty of Adonis, the lyre of Orpheus, the strength of Hercules, the grace of Apollo, the sum of all possibilities--God-man, or man-God, what shall our poor lips call you?" He made the monarch a profound obeisance, too profound to permit Robert to see the mockery shining in his eyes.

The monarch drank the delicious draught with more than royal gravity as he answered:

"You are a wise man. But if I have immortal merits, I have very mortal desires. This is not the first time that I have climbed to these summits."

Hildebrand had raised his head, and mockery had given ground to surprise.

"Indeed, sire?" he asked. The King was silent for a moment, musing on sweet memories, and when he spoke it was with smiling lips.

"My honest father, worthy man, forbade hunting in these happy hills, which gave me an itch to beat their coverts. Last week, while you were away at Naples, I rode in these hills till I could ride no longer, left my horse, lost my way, till in the very heart of the forest I met a girl--indeed, at first my joy mistook her for a goddess."

"Was she so fair?" Hildebrand asked, questioning rather the delight on Robert's face than the weight of Robert's words.

And Robert answered him eagerly, hotly:

"I tell you, Hildebrand, the loveliest I ever saw. No wonder that the antique world called Venus Erycina, if in the island where Eryx rears its crest such wonderful women still tread the earth with goddess feet."

Hildebrand repeated his question. "Was she so fair?"

There was a rapture on Robert's face as he answered:

"Naples is a very rose-garden of radiant women, but this wild rose of the woods was as far above them as I am above other men. She gave me drink from a fountain, lifting it to me in a cool, green leaf, and the clear water was sweeter than wine of Cyprus and headier than wine of Hungary, and I drank delicious madness."

A smile puckered Hildebrand's lips.

"Did you pluck this wild rose of the woods?" he asked.

Robert shook his head, but there was no look of regret in his eyes or sound of regret in his voice.

"No, no, no! Oh, not then, not yet! There are pleasures of Tantalus as well as pains of Tantalus. Had I told her I was the King, she would have flung herself into my arms and there would have been a workaday end to the wonder. No. I lingered and sipped at sweet desires. I masqued and ambled Arcady for her; was no more than I seemed, a simple hunter; flattered her with honest boy-babble, said her farewell with a low sweep of my cap, and left her with a new happiness in my heart, the happiness of an unsatisfied longing, an unanswered ache. If your school-boy were ever an epicure, he would sometimes leave the queen apples of the orchard unfingered."