"Nay--I was not afraid. Your father was in another room with the men. Zenas had gone outside. I heard him go muttering through the door as I crept softly down the steps. I peeped through the split panel--my champion was there ... sleeping. But, already have I told you the story. Ah! how brave was he. Not once did he flinch the battle, or look about him, or call for help. And he is handsome; marry, sweet coz, but he is handsome! All girded up in shining, inlaid armor. His brown-gold hair flowing almost to his shoulders. His health-bronzed cheeks smooth and shapely. And his mouth! Um-m-m! Well----" "Why, cousin! some wicked witch has cast a spell above you, I fear." "Nay--'tis not witchery, sweetest Rocelia," said Isabel, seating herself beside her fair-haired cousin and lovingly entwining her arms about her slender form. "I am but filled to overflowing with the joy of living. A something of excitement is both sup and drink to me. Now listen. Bear with your madcap cousin whilst she discourses with you in deepest earnest. A champion I must and will have. But he need not know me, or even look upon my face." "I cannot understand. You are speaking in riddles, Isabel." "Nay, give ear till I've finished and you shall see it plain enough. My knight of the brown-gold curls, an I mistake me not, is even at this moment slumbering within the next chamber. With a bodkin a cleft in the wall can be used as a slight avenue of secret communication. Then a missive, and a bit of cloth clipped from my--no yours, 'tis of a more enticing color--your saffron gown, I'll say, dear cousin; and thus I have my champion and no soul but you and I the wiser. Do not say me nay, good, generous Rocelia. It will be a right merry and harmless frolic, think you not?" "'Twould be a sorry one for you, I fear, an my father found you out," replied Rocelia, half in jest, half earnestly. "Enough. Let the hazard be mine, sweet. And now to business. Whilst I am at work with the bodkin, do you shear me a strip from off your saffron velvet kirtle." * * * * * Sir Richard, sleeping soundly, was all unconscious of the widely varying activities of which he was now become the center. Beneath the room in which Isabel, now singing, now laughing, was engaged upon the wall, Friar Diomed had finished brewing and mixing the herbs and chemicals of his narcotic. "My oath on 't, Friar Diomed," Tyrrell was saying from his seat beside the fire, "your cloth shall not save your shaven pate, an this potion bring one jot of harm to the young noble."