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Rh somewhat fixedly in my direction. By God's soul! I should be right glad to go further into the matter with you.'

'And you, my Lord of Pommers,' said Sir Nigel, pushing his way to the front, 'it is in my mind that we might break a lance in gentle and honourable debate over the question.'

For a moment a dozen challenges flashed backwards and forwards at this sudden bursting of the cloud which had lowered so long between the knights of the two nations. Furious and gesticulating the Gascons, white and cold and sneering the English, while the prince with a half-smile glanced from one party to the other, like a man who loved to dwell upon a fiery scene, and yet dreaded lest the mischief go so far that he might find it beyond his control.

'Friends, friends!' he cried at last, 'this quarrel must go no further. The man shall answer to me, be he Gascon or English, who carries it beyond this room. I have overmuch need for your swords that you should turn them upon each other. Sir John Charnell, Lord Audley, you do not doubt the courage of our friends of Gascony?'

'Not I, sire,' Lord Audley answered. 'I have seen them fight too often not to know that they are very hardy and valiant gentlemen.' 'And so say I,' quoth the oilier Englishman; 'but, certes, there is no fear of our forgetting it while they have a tongue in their heads.'

'Nay, Sir John,' said the prince, reprovingly, 'all peoples have their own use and customs. There are some who might call us cold and dull and silent. But you hear, my lords of Gascony, that these gentlemen had no thought to throw a slur upon your honour or your valour, so let all anger fade from your mind. Clisson, Captal, De Pommers, I have your word?'

'We are your subjects, sire,' said the Gascon barons, though with no very good grace. 'Your words are our law.'

'Then shall we bury all cause of unkindness in a flagon