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CHAPTER XXXIV.
A RESCUE.

ALTER Espec, albeit since leaving England he
had enacted the part of squire to two of the
foremost earls in Christendom, was too much in need
of a protector not to accept Bisset’s offer with grati-
tude; and the English knight exercised his influence
with such effect that both of them were soon provided
with horses and raiment befitting their rank, and made
a creditable figure among the Crusaders who thronged
Acre. Indeed Walter, having now quite recovered
from his illness, attracted much notice, and won the
reputation of being one of the handsomest English-
men who had ever appeared in the Syrian city.
Nevertheless, Walter was gloomy and despondent.
All his enquiries after Osbert, his lost brother,
resulted in disappointment. Guy Muschamp he
regarded as one to be numbered with the dead; and
Adeline de Brienne, who since their unexpected
meeting at Damietta, where in days of dismay and
danger they had conversed on equal terms, was now,
as the grand-daughter of a King of Jerusalem, treated
as a princess, and moved in too high a sphere to be
approached by a simple squire. At first he was