“O Griffeth, it is a wondrous thought how soon we may be soaring above the very stars!  And methinks it may well be given to thee to wing thy way to thine own home for one last look ere thou departest for the holy land whence we can never wish to return.”

Griffeth gave him a bright, eager look.

“I will think that myself —­ I will believe it.  This is not my last farewell.”

CHAPTER XII.  A STRANGE BRIDAL.

“My prince, tempt me not.  It is hard to refuse; but there are some things no man may do with honour, and, believe me, honour is dearer to me than life, dearer even than liberty; though Heaven alone knows how dear that is to every free-born son of Cambria.  I to leave my brother to wear away his days in captivity whilst I escape under his name!  Prince Alphonso, I know not what you think my heart is made of.  Am I to live in freedom, whilst he whom I love best in the world bears the burden of my fault, and lingers out his young life within the walls of the king’s prison?”

Alphonso looked searchingly in Wendot’s face, and realized for the first time the youth’s absolute ignorance of his brother’s state.  No wonder he refused with scorn the proffered boon!  Yet it would be a hard task to break the sad tidings to one who so deeply loved his gentle younger brother, from childhood his chosen comrade.

Alphonso was lying on a couch in one of the smaller state apartments of Windsor Castle, and the window, close to which he had bidden his attendants wheel him, overlooked the beautiful valley of the Thames.  The first of the autumn tints were gilding the rich stretches of woodland, whilst a faint blue haze hung over the distance, and the river ran like a silver thread, glinting here and there into golden brightness as some brighter ray of sunlight fell upon it.

Alphonso loved the view commanded by this window.  He and Griffeth spent many long happy hours here, looking out on the fair prospect, and exchanging whispered thoughts and bright aspirations with regard to some land even fairer than the one they now beheld.

But Wendot never looked at the beautiful valley without experiencing a strange oppression of spirit.  It reminded him of that wilder valley of the Towy, and his eyes would grow dim and his heart sick with the fruitless longing after home, which grew harder and harder to hear with every week of captivity, now that his bodily health was restored.  Captivity was telling upon him, and he was pining as an eagle pines when caught and shut up by man even in a gilded cage.  He looked pale and wan and wistful.  Often he felt stifled by the warm, close air of the valley, and felt that he must die did he not escape to the freer air of the mountains.

But he seldom spoke of these feelings even to Griffeth, and strangely enough his illness and these homesick longings produced upon his outer man an effect which was wonderfully favourable to the plan fermenting in the brains of the royal children and their immediate companions.