way, last year—fished me out of the Gulf of Spezzia, when I was all but spent; awful tempest at the time; very nearly drowned himself. Is he here, do you say?"
"He's at that wretched rat-hole of his," grumbled Polemore, sorely in wrath.
"King's Rest? Didn't know that. Go and see him to-morrow."
"What remarkably conflicting statements!" murmured Lady Augusta, with languid amusement. "A beggar and a savage!—a preux chevalier and a paladin of chivalry! Singular combination this—what is it?—Fulke Erceldoune."
"Nay," laughed Vane, "it was a combination common enough in the old days of chivalry, and our friend seems to me better suited to the Cinque Cento than the present century. Just the sort of man to have been a Knight Templar with Cœur de Lion, or an adventurer with Pizarro, with no capital and no credit but his Toledo blade."
"Trash!" said the absent man's defender, with impatient disdain that almost roused him into energy, "Erceldoune is a splendid fellow. Lady Augusta. I only wish you could see him ride to hounds. In saddle; in sport; on a yacht deck in a storm; with any big game you like—pigs, bisons,
