“Pardon me, my friends, I do not doubt it a moment. I know enough of the world never to have found a sheepdog yet who would not, on occasion, help to make away with a little of the mutton which he guarded. Eh, my venerable sir?” turning to Wulf with a knowing bow.
Wulf chuckled grimly, and said something to the Amal in German about being civil to guests.
“You will pardon me, my heroic friends,” said Orestes, “but, with your kind permission, I will observe that I am somewhat faint and disturbed by late occurrences. To trespass on your hospitality further would be an impertinence. If, therefore, I might send a slave to find some of my apparitors—”
“No, by all the gods!” roared the Amal, “you’re my guest now—my lady’s at least. And no one ever went out of my house sober yet if I could help it. Set the cooks to work, my men! The Prefect shall feast with us like an emperor, and we’ll send him home tonight as drunk as he can wish. Come along, your Excellency; we’re rough fellows, we Goths; but by the Valkyrs, no one can say that we neglect our guests!”
“It is a sweet compulsion,” said Orestes, as he went in.
“Stop, by the by! Didn’t one of you men catch a monk?”
“Here he is, prince, with his elbows safe behind him.” And a tall, haggard, half-naked monk was dragged forward.
“Capital! bring him in. His Excellency shall judge him while dinner’s cooking, and Smid shall have the hanging of him. He hurt nobody in the scuffle; he was thinking of his dinner.”
“Some rascal bit a piece out of my leg, and I tumbled down,” grumbled Smid.
“Well, pay out this fellow for it, then. Bring a chair, slaves! Here, your Highness, sit there and judge.”
“Two chairs!” said someone; “the Amal shan’t stand before the emperor himself.”
“By all means, my dear friends. The Amal and I will act as the two Caesars, with divided empire. I presume we shall have little difference of opinion as to the hanging of this worthy.”
“Hanging’s too quick for him.”
“Just what I was about to remark—there are certain judicial formalities, considered generally to be conducive to the stability, if not necessary to the existence, of the Roman empire—”
“I say, don’t talk so much,” shouted a Goth, “If you want to have the hanging of him yourself, do. We thought we would save you trouble.”
“Ah, my excellent friend, would you rob me of the delicate pleasure of revenge? I intend to spend at least four hours tomorrow in killing this pious martyr. He will have a good time to think, between the beginning and the end of the rack.”
“Do you hear that, master monk?” said Smid, chucking him under the chin, while the rest of the party seemed to think the whole business an excellent joke, and divided their ridicule openly enough between the Prefect and his victim.
“The man of blood has said it. I am a martyr,” answered the monk in a dogged voice.
“You will take a good deal of time in becoming one.”
“Death may be long, but glory is everlasting.”
“True. I forgot that, and will save you the said glory, if I can help it, for a year or two. Who was it struck me with the stone?”
No answer.
“Tell me, and the moment he is in my lictors’ hands I pardon you freely.”
The monk laughed. “Pardon? Pardon me eternal bliss, and the things unspeakable, which God has prepared for those who love Him? Tyrant and butcher! I struck thee, thou second Dioclesian—I hurled the stone—I, Ammonius. Would to heaven that it had smitten thee through, thou Sisera, like the nail of Jael the Kenite!”
“Thanks, my friend. Heroes, you have a cellar for monks as well as for wine? I will trouble you with this hero’s psalm-singing tonight, and send my apparitors for him in the morning.”
“If he begins howling when we are in bed, your men won’t find much of him left in the morning,” said the Amal. “But here come the slaves, announcing dinner.”
“Stay,” said Orestes; “there is one more with whom I have an account to settle—that young philosopher there.”
“Oh, he is coming in, too. He never was drunk in his life, I’ll warrant, poor fellow, and it’s high time for him to begin.” And the Amal laid a good-natured bear’s paw on Philammon’s shoulder, who hung back in perplexity, and cast a piteous look towards Wulf.
Wulf answered it by a shake of the head, which gave Philammon courage to stammer out a courteous refusal. The Amal swore an oath at him which made the cloister ring again, and with a quiet shove of his heavy hand, sent him staggering half across the court: but Wulf interposed.
“The boy is mine, prince. He is no drunkard, and I will not let him become one. Would to heaven,” added he, under his breath, “that I could say the same to some others. Send us out our supper here, when you are done. Half a sheep or so will do between us, and enough of the strongest to wash it down with. Smid knows my quantity.”
“Why in heaven’s name are you not coming in?”
“That mob will be trying to burst the gates again before two hours are out; and as someone must stand sentry, it may as well be a man who will not have his ears stopped up by wine and women’s kisses. The boy will stay with me.”
So the party went in, leaving Wulf and Philammon alone in the outer hall.
There the two sat for some half hour, casting stealthy glances at each other, and wondering perhaps, each of them vainly enough, what was going on in the opposite brain. Philammon, though his heart was full of his sister, could not help noticing the air of deep sadness which hung about the scarred and weather-beaten features of the old warrior. The grimness which he had remarked on their first meeting seemed to be now changed into a settled
