Page:The Queens of England.djvu/127

 ELEANOR OF CASTILLE. 107 ploying a person to assassinate him. "The prince," says Daniel, "was dangerously wounded in three places of his body, with a poisoned knife, by a treacherous assassin, of which wounds, when no medicine could cure him, his loving wife, Queen Eleanor, extracting the poison by sucking them, per- fectly healed them." This story, it is to be feared, is more romantic than true. Edward, it seems, was one day lying on the couch in his tent, suffering from' the extreme heat of the climate, when a messenger sent to demand an interview with him, pretending that he came from the Emir of Joppa, who was anxious to become a convert to the Christian faith. The messenger, who was in truth an emissary of the famous Old Man of the Mountain, who kept a band of assassins, was admit- ted, and while Edward was in the act of reading a letter which the stranger had placed in his hands, the latter made a sudden plunge at the prince's heart with a poisoned poniard, but which Edward, perceiving his design, fortunately caught on his arm. The two were alone together at the time. Edward, in an in- stant, raised his foot, and felled the assassin to the ground with a kick on the breast. A fierce struggle ensued, in which the prince received another wound in the forehead. At this moment his attendants rushed into the tent, but before they had time to interfere, Edward had dispatched the assassin ; according to some accounts, by knocking his brains out with a stool ; according to others, by stabbing him with his own poniard. Although the wound in the prince's arm was apparently a trifling one, it was not long before unfavorable appearances presented themselves ; mortification threatened to ensue, and it was evident that his life was in the greatest danger. Hither- to, Eleanor had watched composedly by the bed-side of her sick husband, attending to his wants with that unwearying and tender care which was to be anticipated from the softness of her disposition and the devotedness of her love. When the truth, however, flashed upon her mind, — and when it was intimated to her that it was only by his undergoing a most painful sur- gical operation, that any hopes could be entertained of saving a life so precious to her, — she entirely lost her firmness and presence of mind in the anguish of her grief, and gave vent to a violent flood of tears. So entirely, indeed, was she over- Come by her feelings, that the prince's brother, Edmund, and his favorite knight, John De Vesci, — fearing that her sobs and tears might have a prejudicial effect on the sufferer, — bore her,