And stay--hark thee--we will not have him dishonoured--he shall die knightlike, in his belt and spurs; for if his treachery be as black as hell, his boldness may match that of the devil himself." De Vaux, right glad, if the truth may be guessed, that the scene ended without Richard's descending to the unkingly act of himself slaying an unresisting prisoner, made haste to remove Sir Kenneth by a private issue to a separate tent, where he was disarmed, and put in fetters for security.

De Vaux looked on with a steady and melancholy attention, while the provost's officers, to whom Sir Kenneth was now committed, took these severe precautions.
When they were ended, he said solemnly to the unhappy criminal, "It is King Richard's pleasure that you die undegraded--without mutilation of your body, or shame to your arms--and that your head be severed from the trunk by the sword of the executioner." "It is kind," said the knight, in a low and rather submissive tone of voice, as one who received an unexpected favour; "my family will not then hear the worst of the tale.

Oh, my father--my father!" This muttered invocation did not escape the blunt but kindly-natured Englishman, and he brushed the back of his large hand over his rough features ere he could proceed.
"It is Richard of England's further pleasure," he said at length, "that you have speech with a holy man; and I have met on the passage hither with a Carmelite friar, who may fit you for your passage.

He waits without, until you are in a frame of mind to receive him." "Let it be instantly," said the knight.

"In this also Richard is kind.