the unwonted lustre which could suggest the most strained solution of his enigma. Roof, walls, and pavement were alike naked and silent.

Another scene, however, and of a different interest, now awaited him, in which although a human and seemingly distinct aspect was presented, the agency was, perhaps, little less occult and threatening.

Some of the fetters with which he had been loaded were struck off, and the guards conducted him to the Castle hall, a vast apartment, nearly ninety feet in length, and of which the lofty roof was supported by carved work of prodigious boldness, resting on ponderous brackets. In the centre, upon a bier raised about four feet from the pavement, lay the ostensible cause of his summons thither, the lifeless body of De Waleric. It was so disposed as to exhibit to the first glance of a spectator the violence which had driven the spirit from its tenement; a sort of shroud or pall being thrown over the lower parts, while the breast and head displayed, in open ghastliness, the wounds inflicted by the arrows of the assassins, in two of which the

deadly shafts yet remained where they had been so fatally planted.

Grouped around this revolting object, were many knights and nobles, amongst whom Raymond was not slow to distinguish those who were most likely to take an active part in the inquest thus prepared for. He saw Montgomery -De Tunbridge-De Miles-De Lacy, and others of the faction opposed to De Mowbray. These clustered together, and conversed apart; while, on the other side of the bier, stood the Earl of Chester, his powerful vassal Nigel of Halton, and some subordinate dignitaries of the Palatinate. Other, and less important, or with respect to our narrative, less interesting groups, there were, all occupied with the same engrossing subject. Two individuals stood singlyapart from the rest and from each other; the Justiciary Flambard, and the kinsman of the dead, William de Aldery, upon whose countenance, ordinarily sad enough, the shadows of despondency were now trebly deepened.

Raymond was constrained by his escort to pause at the extremity of the hall, but his

appearance was not unnoted by the assemblage; and it may be questioned whether grim smiles and glances of dark significancy would have been the worst of his greeting, had not the King himself almost immediately entered, accompanied by those who had been his partners in the hunt. Like" Amurath, the Sultan of the East," Rufus had returned from an unsuccessful chase; not without some portion of the evil mood consequent upon such disappointments; although it was perhaps subjected to a more powerful will than that of the oriental monarch.

He paused on beholding the assembled nobles, and, for an instant, regarded them with something like displeased surprise; but, instantly detecting the cause, strode gloomily to the head of the bier, threw a burning glance upon the features of the dead, and, transferring it in rapid succession to every living face around him, broke out, at length, in accents not loud, but tremulous with passion

It seemed as if no oath or imprecation of corresponding terror and malignancy suggested itself; or the exasperated monarch was strangely

enabled to forbear its utterance. Turning to Flambard, he merely said, in tones of fearfully constrained calmness,

"Who hath done this?"

"God and our Lady know, my royal Liege," answered Ranulph, "not I."

"Not thou!" iterated the King fiercely, as if grasping the first pretext for resuming the violence he had restrained

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By God and our Lady both, Sir Justiciary! but right fitting it is that thou didst know somewhat and that speedily! if not, what makes this carrion here? why cumbers it the very threshold of my palace? I care not, I, for the poor clay! but by the splendour of heaven! he that in the peaceful forest hath changed a gallant knight into this livid clod-he that hath transformed Hugo de St. Waleric into this grinning and chap-fallen ghastliness, if he draw breath in realm of mine, let him beware the penalty! millions of treasure shall not redeem it! I will have blood for blood! Give me but the shadow of a proof, and I will nail his severed quarters to castle-gates, east, west, north, and south, and set his murderous head upon the topmost turret

of Tyne Castle! Thou wilt not gainsay the justice of that sentence, Lord Abbot, ha? there is holy warrant for that, methinks, if it be lacking for him who slaughters the King's deer!"

"Woe be to him," replied the Abbot, "who putteth the blood of war upon the girdle that is about his loins in peace! he shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike him through!"

"A false prophet, Sir Priest!" rejoined the monarch" He shall not die the death of a gallant buck, but that of a skulking felon !"

"The buck must be chased, my Liege," said Flambard," and the felon caught; or your grace shall have bootless hunger either for vengeance or venison."

"Didst ever hear of a King that fasted for lack of either? if thou didst, it was not William of England! speak! speak ye that canspeak one and all! Where was this mangling of God's image done? who found the corpse? who saw? who heard? who is suspect? and why? Spare not for name or fame ! the proudest in this presence should not- -Oh, fair and softly! is De Aldery here!" his eye, at that mo