"Time enough yet for both, lad," cried the King. "The true knight is master of both, and knight shalt thou be when next on horse again!" A matter which indeed came to pass; for Richard laughingly declared that, considering that the young man already had fairly won his knightly spurs in the field, never was a set of harp-strings so cheaply bought before as by the exchange just ordered. But Louis lay back on his cushions with his heart fluttering like a girl's, knowing well that it was but a jest of the merry monarch's, and that the real honour he meant the world to know was battle-won. Thus he came back from Palestine "Sir Louis of Daneshold," with the red cross of the Crusader blazoned on his shoulder, and knighted by the King's own hand. And thus it came to pass, also, that Blondel struck up such a friendship for the giver of the harp-strings, and found them so wonderfully resonant, that when the expedition broke up and all started homeward, he insisted on going with him, at least part way. Thus they had a joyous journeying together by land and sea. But one day, after they had parted company, word came to Blondel as he sang at the banquet table of a castle; a word carelessly spoken by a guest as of a matter which every one knew. And by cautious questioning he learned that Richard of England had never reached his kingdom; that Leopold, Duke of Austria, treacherously had made him prisoner while crossing his dukedom, whither a shipwreck had driven him, and handed him to an enemy of his, Emperor Henry VI., who paid sixty thousand pounds for him and now held him chained deep in some one of the many castles of his domain. In which one, no one knew. Richard a captive! Blondel could hardly credit it. He sang no more that night, nor for many nights. Months afterward, a minstrel went roaming here and there, apparently aimlessly, throughout Germany. Everywhere the lovely music that breathed from his harp-strings made him welcome at the towering castles that surmounted the cliffs along the winding Rhine. His handsome face and joyous songs made him the favourite among the maidens and they begged him to pass the season as their guest; but no. For a week, perhaps, he would be with them, then like a swallow he must on again to other resting-places, and long afterward the young girls on the castle walls would sing at their tasks the snatches of melody left in their memories as he passed.