I do think that nothing really nice ever lasts in this world. The Baron de Montluc arrived here last night from Byzantium with all sorts of bad news. In the first place, Saladin, with his Paynim army, has re-entered the Holy Land, and is marching, as men fear, upon Neapolis. If he do this, he will cut off Acre from the Holy City, and the young Lord King cannot reach his capital. The Baron sent a trusty messenger back to Acre, to Count Raymond, urging him to hasten to the Holy City with the King, and lose not an hour in doing it. The coast road is still clear; or he could come by sea to Jaffa. Messire de Montluc sent his own signet as a token to Count Raymond—which ring the Count knows well. Guy has ordered us all to pack up, and return without loss of time to the Holy City, where he will take the command till Count Raymond arrives. "Now, Elaine!—how wouldst thou like a siege?" triumphantly asks Amaury. May all the holy saints avert such a calamity! But there is, if possible, even worse behind: inasmuch as a foe without the gates is less formidable than a traitor within them. The Patriarch (I will not call him holy this time) and the Lord Roger had returned as far as Byzantium a few days before Messire de Montluc left that city, and it comes out now, what all their fine talk of pilgrimage meant. They have been at the Court of England on purpose to offer the crown of Jerusalem to King Henry the father, seeing (say they) the distracted state of the kingdom, the peril of Paynim war, and the fact that King Henry is the nearest heir of King Foulques of Anjou. Well, upon my word! As if the crown of Jerusalem were theirs to offer! It seems to me, too—but every body, even Guy, says that is only one of my queer, unaccountable notions—that, since King Foulques of Anjou had no right to the crown except as the husband of Queen Melisende, so long as her heirs remain in existence, they should be preferred to his heirs by another wife. But Amaury laughs at me for saying this. He says, of course, when Count Foulques married Queen Melisende, and became King, all her right passed to him, and she was thenceforth simply his consort, his children having as much right as hers. It does not seem just and fair to me; but every one only laughs, and says I have such absurd fancies. "Why, what would be the good of marrying an heiress at all," says Amaury, "if you had to give up her property when she died before you?" Still I do not see that it is just. And I wonder if, sometimes, the queer ideas of one century do not become the common ideas of the next. But Amaury seems to think that notion exquisitely ridiculous. "Nonsense, Elaine!" says he. "It was a simple matter of family arrangement. Don’t go and fancy thyself the wisest woman in the world! Thou hast the silliest ideas I ever heard." "Well, I don’t, Amaury," said I, "any more than I fancy thee the wisest man." Guy laughed, and told Amaury he had a Roland for his Oliver.