Without a word, the Prince with long swift strides, in the light of the sinking sun, walked up the low hill, the same where erst the pious Æneas climbed with his faithful Achates following. From the brow the Trojan prince had beheld the rising city in the valley—the English prince came on its desolation. Yet nature had made the vale lovely—green with well-watered verdure, fields of beauteous green maize, graceful date palms, and majestic cork trees; and among them were white flat-roofed Moorish houses; but many a black stain on the fair landscape told of the fresh havoc of an invading army. Utterly blotted out was Carthage. Half demolished, half choked with sand, the city of Dido, the city of Hannibal, the city of Cyprian—all had vanished alike, and nothing remained erect but a Moorish fortress, built up with fragments of the huge stones of the old Phoenicians, intermixed with the friezes and sculptures of Græcising Rome, and the whole fabric in the graceful Saracenic taste; while completing the strange mixture of periods, another of those mournful French banners drooped from the battlements, and around it spread the white tents of the armies of France and the Two Sicilies, like it with trailing banners; an orphaned plague-stricken host in a ruined city. While the Prince paused for a moment’s glance, a party of knights came spurring up the hill, who had been ordered off to meet him on the first intelligence that his fleet was in sight, but had been taken by surprise by his alertness. They met with bowed heads and dejected mien; and there was one who hid his face and wept aloud as he exclaimed, “Ah! Messire, our holy King loved you well!” “Alas, beau sire Guillaume de Porçeles!” was all that Edward could say, as with tears in his eyes he held out his hand to the good Provençal knight, adding, “Let me hear!”