But as the bearers were going out on tiptoe he suddenly sat up in bed.

'Hugh,' he grumbled, 'Bishop Hugh, come thou here.' The Bishop turned back eagerly, for those two had loved each other in their way, and knelt by his bed.
'Read me the signatures to these damned things,' said the King; and Hugh rejoiced that he was better, yet feared to make him worse.
'Ah, dear sire,' he began to say; but 'Read, man,' said the old King, jerking his foot under the bedclothes.

So Hugh the Bishop began to read them over, and the sick man listened with a shaky head, for by now the fever was running high.
'Philip the August, King of the Franks,' says the Bishop; and 'A dog's name,' the old King muttered in his throat.

'Sanchez, Catholic King of Navarre,' says Hugh; and 'Name of an owl,' King Henry.

To the same ground-bass he treated the themes of the illustrious Duke of Burgundy, Henry Count of Champagne, and others of the French party.