sin to refuse so brave a knight
“Lucas Beaumanoir!” said Bois-Guilbert, reproachfully. “Are these your precautions, Malvoisin? Hast thou suffered the dotard to learn that Rebecca is in the preceptory?”
“How could I help it?” said the preceptor. “I neglected nothing that could keep secret your mystery; but it is betrayed, and whether by the devil or no, the devil only can tell. But I have turned the matter as I could; you are safe if you renounce Rebecca. You are pitied—the victim of magical delusion. She is a sorceress, and must suffer as such.”
“She shall not, by Heaven!” said Bois-Guilbert.
“By Heaven, she must and will!” said Malvoisin. “Neither you nor any one else can save her. Lucas Beaumanoir hath settled that the death of a Jewess will be a sin-offering sufficient to atone for all the amorous indulgences of the Knights Templars; and thou knowest he hath both the power and will to execute so reasonable and pious a purpose.”
“Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!” said Bois-Guilbert, striding up and down the apartment.
“What they may believe, I know not,” said Malvoisin, calmly; “but I know well, that in this our day clergy and laymen, take ninety-nine to the hundred, will cry ‘Amen’ to the Grand Master’s sentence.”
“I have it,” said Bois-Guilbert. “Albert, thou art my friend. Thou must connive at her escape, Malvoisin, and I will transport her to some place of greater security and secrecy.”
“I cannot, if I would,” replied the preceptor: “the mansion is filled with the attendants of the Grand Master, and others who are devoted to him. And, to be frank with you, brother, I would not embark with you in this matter, even if I could hope to bring my bark to haven. I have risked enough already for your sake. I have no mind to encounter a sentence of degradation, or even to lose my preceptory, for the sake of a painted piece of Jewish flesh and blood. And you, if you will be guided by my counsel, will give up this wild-goose chase, and fly your hawk at some other game. Think, Bois-Guilbert; thy present rank, thy future honours, all depend on thy place in the order. Shouldst thou adhere perversely to thy passion for this Rebecca, thou wilt give Beaumanoir the power of expelling thee, and he will not neglect it. He is jealous of the truncheon which he holds in his trembling gripe, and he knows thou stretchest thy bold hand towards it. Doubt not he will ruin thee, if thou affordest him a pretext so fair as thy protection of a Jewish sorceress. Give him his scope in this matter, for thou canst not control him. When the staff is in thine own firm grasp, thou mayest caress the daughters of Judah, or burn them, as may best suit thine own humour.”
“Malvoisin,” said Bois-Guilbert, “thou art a cold-blooded—”
“Friend,” said the preceptor, hastening to fill up the blank, in which Bois-Guilbert would probably have placed a worse word—“a cold-blooded friend I am, and therefore more fit to give thee advice. I tell thee once more, that thou canst not save Rebecca. I tell thee once more, thou canst but perish with her. Go hie thee to the Grand Master; throw thyself at his feet and tell him—”
“Not at his feet, by Heaven! but to the dotard’s very beard will I say—”
“Say to him, then, to his beard,” continued Malvoisin, coolly, “that you love this captive Jewess to distraction; and the more thou dost enlarge on thy passion, the greater will be his haste to end it by the death of the fair enchantress; while thou, taken in flagrant delictfl by the avowal of a crime contrary to thine oath, canst hope no aid of thy brethren, and must exchange all thy brilliant visions of ambition and power, to lift perhaps a mercenary spear in some of the petty quarrels between Flanders and Burgundy.”
“Thou speakest the truth, Malvoisin,” said Brian de Bois-Guilbert, after a moment’s reflection. “I will give the hoary bigot no advantage over me; and for Rebecca, she hath not merited at my hand that I should expose rank and honour for her sake. I will cast her off; yes, I will leave her to her fate, unless—”
“Qualify not thy wise and necessary resolution,” said Malvoisin; “women are but the toys which amuse our lighter hours; ambition is the serious business of life. Perish a thousand such frail baubles as this Jewess, before thy manly step pause in the brilliant career that lies stretched before thee! For the present we part, nor must we be seen to hold close conversation; I must order the hall for his judgment-seat.”
“What!” said Bois-Guilbert, “so soon?”
“Ay,” replied the preceptor, “trial moves rapidly on when the judge has determined the sentence beforehand.”
“Rebecca,” said Bois-Guilbert, when he was left alone, “thou art like to cost me dear. Why cannot I abandon thee to thy fate, as this calm hypocrite recommends? One effort will I make to save thee; but beware of ingratitude! for, if I am again repulsed, my vengeance shall equal my love. The life and honour of Bois-Guilbert must not be hazarded, where contempt and reproaches are his only reward.”
The preceptor had hardly given the necessary orders, when he was joined by Conrade Mont-Fitchet, who acquainted him with the Grand Master’s resolution to bring the Jewess to instant trial for sorcery.
“It is surely a dream,” said the preceptor; “we have many Jewish physicians, and we call them not wizards though they work wonderful cures.”
“The Grand Master thinks otherwise,” said Mont-Fitchet; “and, Albert, I will be upright with thee: wizard or not, it were better that this miserable damsel die than that Brian de Bois-Guilbert should be lost to the order, or the order divided by internal dissension. Thou knowest his high rank, his fame in arms; thou knowest the zeal with which many of our brethren regard him; but all this will not avail him with our Grand Master, should he consider Brian as the accomplice, not the victim, of this Jewess. Were the souls of the twelve tribes in her single body, it were better she suffered alone than that Bois-Guilbert were partner in her destruction.”
“I have been working him even now to abandon her,” said Malvoisin; “but still, are there grounds enough to condemn this Rebecca for sorcery? Will not the Grand Master change his mind when he sees that the proofs are so weak?”
“They must be strengthened, Albert,” replied Mont-Fitchet—“they must be strengthened. Dost thou understand me?”
“I do,” said the preceptor, “nor do I scruple to do aught for advancement of the order; but there is little time to find engines fitting.”
“Malvoisin, they
“There is,” replied Malvoisin, “among those who came hither with Bois-Guilbert, two fellows whom I well know; servants they were to my brother Philip de Malvoisin, and passed from his service to that of Front-de-B?uf. It may be they know something of the witcheries of this woman.”
“Away, seek them out instantly; and hark thee, if a byzant or two will sharpen their memory, let them not be wanting.”
“They would swear the mother that bore them a sorceress for a zecchin,” said the preceptor.
“Away, then,” said Mont-Fitchet; “at noon the affair will proceed. I have not seen our senior in such earnest preparation since he condemned to the stake Hamet Alfagi, a convert who relapsed to the Moslem faith.”
The ponderous castle-bell had tolled the point of noon, when Rebecca heard a trampling of feet upon the private stair which led to her place of confinement. The noise announced the arrival of several persons, and the circumstance rather gave her joy; for she was more afraid of the solitary visits of the fierce and passionate Bois- Guilbert than of any evil that could befall her besides. The door of the chamber was unlocked, and Conrade and the preceptor Malvoisin entered, attended by four warders clothed in black, and bearing halberds.
“Daughter of an accursed race!” said the preceptor, “arise and follow us.”
“Whither,” said Rebecca, “and for what purpose?”
“Damsel,” answered Conrade, “it is not for thee to question, but to obey. Nevertheless, be it known to thee, that thou art to be brought before the tribunal of the Grand Master of our holy order, there to answer for thine offences.”
“May the God of Abraham be praised!” said Rebecca, folding her hands devoutly; “the name of a judge, though an enemy to my people, is to me as the name of a protector. Most willingly do I follow thee; permit me only to wrap my veil around my head.”
