"What, Wilfrid my gossip? Art come to see
the lion's den? There are bones in it, man, bones and carcasses, and the
lion is angry," said the King, with a terrific glare of his eyes. "But
tush! we will talk of that anon. Ho! bring two gallons of hypocras for
the King and the good Knight, Wilfrid of Ivanhoe. Thou art come in
time, Wilfrid, for, by St. Richard and St. George, we will give a grand
assault to-morrow. There will be bones broken, ha!"
"I care not, my liege," said Ivanhoe, pledging the sovereign
respectfully, and tossing off the whole contents of the bowl of hypocras
to his Highness's good health. And he at once appeared to be taken into
high favor; not a little to the envy of many of the persons surrounding
the King.
As his Majesty said, there was fighting and feasting in plenty before
Chalus. Day after day, the besiegers made assaults upon the castle, but
it was held so stoutly by the Count of Chalus and his gallant
garrison, that each afternoon beheld the attacking-parties returning
disconsolately to their tents, leaving behind them many of their own
slain, and bringing back with them store of broken heads and maimed
limbs, received in the unsuccessful onset. The valor displayed by
Ivanhoe in all these contests was prodigious; and the way in which
he escaped death from the discharges of mangonels, catapults,
battering-rams, twenty-four pounders, boiling oil, and other artillery,
with which the besieged received their enemies, was remarkable.
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