"It will be in vain," said Prince John, pacing the apartment with
disordered steps, and expressing himself with an agitation to
which the wine he had drank partly contributed---"It will be in
vain--they have seen the handwriting on the wall---they have
marked the paw of the lion in the sand---they have heard his
approaching roar shake the wood---nothing will reanimate their
courage."

"Would to God," said Fitzurse to De Bracy, "that aught could
reanimate his own! His brother's very name is an ague to him.
Unhappy are the counsellors of a Prince, who wants fortitude and
perseverance alike in good and in evil!"




CHAPTER XV


And yet he thinks,---ha, ha, ha, ha,---he thinks
I am the tool and servant of his will.
Well, let it be; through all the maze of trouble
His plots and base oppression must create,
I'll shape myself a way to higher things,
And who will say 'tis wrong?
Basil, a Tragedy


No spider ever took more pains to repair the shattered meshes of