thou dealest uprightly in this matter.

I demand again to know

from thee thy business with Brian de Bois-Guilbert."

"I am bearer of a letter," stammered out the Jew, "so please your reverend valor, to that good knight, from Prior Aymer of the Abbey of Jorvaulx."

"Said I not these were evil times, Conrade?" said the Master.

A Cistercian prior sends a letter to a soldier of the Temple, and can find no more fitting messenger than an unbelieving Jew. Give me the letter."

The Jew with trembling hands undid the folds of his Armenian1 cap, in which he had deposited the prior's tablets for the greater security, and was about to approach, with hand extended and body crouched, to place it within the reach of his grim interrogator.

"Back, dog!" said the Grand Master. "I touch not misbelievers, save with the sword.— Conrade, take thou the letter from the Jew and give it to me."

Beaumanoir, being thus possessed of the tablets, inspected the outside carefully, and then proceeded to undo the pack-thread which secured its folds. "Reverend father," said Conrade, interposing, though with much deference, "wilt thou break the seal? "

"Is it not

"And will I not?" said Beaumanoir with a frown. written in the forty-second capital, De Lectione Literarum,2 that a Templar shall not receive a letter, no, not from his father, without communicating the same to the Grand Master, and reading it in his presence?"

He then perused the letter in haste with an expression of surprise and horror, read it over again more slowly, then holding it out to Conrade with one hand, and slightly striking it with the other, exclaimed, "Here is goodly stuff for one Christian man to write to another, and both members, and no inconsiderable mem

1 Armenia was an ancient country of western Asia, between Asia Minor and the Caspian Sea, now divided between Russia, Turkey, and Persia. 2 "On the Reading of Letters."

bers, of religious professions! When," said he solemnly, and looking upward, "wilt Thou come with Thy fanners to purge the thrashing-floor? "1

Mont-Fitchet took the letter from his superior, and was about to peruse it. “Read it aloud, Conrade," said the Grand Master and do thou (to Isaac) attend to the purport of it, for we will question thee concerning it."

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Conrade read the letter, which was in these words:-
:-

Aymer, by divine grace, prior of the Cistercian house of St. Mary's of Jorvaulx, to Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert, a knight of the holy Order of the Temple, wishes health. Touching our present condition, dear brother, we are a captive in the hands of certain lawless and godless men, who have not feared to detain our person and put us to ransom; whereby we have also learned of Front-de-Bœuf's misfortune, and that thou hast escaped with that fair Jewish sorceress. We are heartily rejoiced of thy safety; nevertheless we pray thee to be on thy guard in the matter of this second Witch of Endor, for we are privately assured that your Great Master comes from Normandy to amend your doings. Wherefore we pray you heartily to beware, and to be found watching, even as the Holy Text hath it, Invenientur vigilantes. And the wealthy Jew her father, Isaac of York, having prayed of me letters in his behalf, I gave him these, earnestly advising, and in a sort entreating, that you do hold the damsel to ransom, whereof I trust to have my part when we make merry together, as true brothers, not forgetting the wine-cup.

Till which merry meeting we wish you farewell. Given from this den of thieves, about the hour of matins.

AYMER PR. S. M. JORVOLCIENCIS.

Postscriptum.-Truly your golden chain hath not long abidden with me, and will now sustain, around the neck of an outlaw deerstealer, the whistle wherewith he calleth on his hounds.

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What sayest thou to this, Conrade?" said the Grand Master. "Den of thieves! and a fit residence is a den of thieves for such a prior. No wonder that the hand of God is upon us, and

1 Fanners were machines for winnowing grain: hence the meaning here is to eliminate the good from the bad.

that in the Holy Land we lose place by place, foot by foot, before the infidels, when we have such churchmen as this Aymer.— And what meaneth he, I trow, by this second Witch of Endor?" said he to his confidant, something apart.

Conrade was better acquainted with the jargon of gallantry than was his superior, and he expounded the passage which embarrassed the Grand Master, but the explanation did not satisfy the bigoted Beaumanoir.

'There is more in it than thou dost guess, Conrade. Thy simplicity is no match for this deep abyss of wickedness. This Rebecca of York was a pupil of that Miriam of whom thou hast heard. Thou shalt hear the Jew own it even now." Then, turning to Isaac, he said aloud, "Thy daughter, then, is prisoner with Brian de Bois-Guilbert?"

"Ay, reverend valorous sir," stammered poor Isaac, "and whatsoever ransom a poor man may pay for her deliverance""Peace!" said the Grand Master. "This thy daughter hath practiced the art of healing, hath she not?

"Ay, gracious sir," answered the Jew with more confidence; "and knight and yeoman, squire and vassal, may bless the goodly gift which Heaven hath assigned to her. Many a one can testify that she hath recovered them by her art, when every other human aid hath proved vain; but the blessing of the God of Jacob was upon her."

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'See,

Beaumanoir turned to Mont-Fitchet with a grim smile. brother," he said, "the deceptions of the devouring Enemy! Well said our blessed rule, Semper percutiatur leo vorans. Up on the lion! Down with the destroyer!" said he, shaking aloft his mystic abacus, as if in defiance of the powers of darkness. "Thy daughter worketh the cures, I doubt not," thus he went on to address the Jew, "by words and sigils,1 and periapts,2 and other cabalistical mysteries."

1 Magical seals; talismans.

2 Charms; amulets.

3 See Note 2, p. 117.

"Nay, reverend and brave knight," answered Isaac, "but in chief measure by a balsam of marvelous virtue."

"Where had she that secret?" said Beaumanoir.

"It was delivered to her," answered Isaac reluctantly, “by Miriam, a sage matron of our tribe.”

"Ah, false Jew!" said the Grand Master, was it not from that same witch Miriam, the abomination of whose enchantments have been heard of throughout every Christian land ?" exclaimed the Grand Master, crossing himself. "Her body was burnt at a stake, and her ashes were scattered to the four winds; and so be it with me and mine order, if I do not as much to her pupil, and more also! I will teach her to throw spell and incantation over the soldiers of the blessed Temple. There, Damian, spurn this Jew from the gate, shoot him dead if he oppose or turn again. With his daughter we will deal as the Christian law and our own high office warrant."

Poor Isaac was hurried off accordingly, and expelled from the preceptory; all his entreaties, and even his offers, unheard and disregarded. He could do no better than return to the house of the rabbi, and endeavor, through his means, to learn how his daughter was to be disposed of. Meanwhile the Grand Master ordered to his presence the Preceptor of Templestowe.

ALBER

CHAPTER XXXVI.

LBERT MALVOISIN, president, or, in the language of the order, preceptor, of the establishment of Templestowe, was brother to that Philip Malvoisin who has been already occasionally mentioned in this history, and was, like that baron, in close league with Brian de Bois-Guilbert.

Amongst unprincipled men, of whom the Temple order included but too many, Albert of Templestowe might be distinguished; but with this difference from the audacious Bois-Guil

bert, that he knew how to throw over his vices and his ambition the veil of hypocrisy, and to assume in his exterior the fanaticism which he internally despised. Had not the arrival of the Grand Master been so unexpectedly sudden, he would have seen nothing at Templestowe which might have appeared to argue any relaxation of discipline; and even although surprised, and to a certain extent detected, Albert Malvoisin listened with such respect and apparent contrition to the rebuke of his superior, and made such haste to reform the particulars he censured,—succeeded, in fine, so well in giving an air of ascetic devotion,- that Lucas Beaumanoir began to entertain a higher opinion of the preceptor's morals than the first appearance of the establishment had inclined him to adopt.

But these favorable sentiments on the part of the Grand Master were greatly shaken by the intelligence that Albert had received within a house of religion a Jewess, the captive of a brother of the order; and when Albert appeared before him, he was regarded with unwonted sternness.

"There is in this mansion, dedicated to the purposes of the holy Order of the Temple," said the Grand Master in a severe tone, a Jewish woman, brought hither by a brother of religion, by your connivance, Sir Preceptor."

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Albert Malvoisin was overwhelmed with confusion; for the unfortunate Rebecca had been confined in a remote and secret part of the building, and every precaution used to prevent her residence there from being known. He read in the looks of Beaumanoir ruin to Bois-Guilbert and to himself unless he should be able to avert the impending storm.

"Why are you mute?" continued the Grand Master.

"Is it permitted to me to reply?" answered the preceptor in a tone of the deepest humility, although by the question he only meant to gain an instant's space for arranging his ideas. "Speak, you are permitted," said the Grand Master. "How comes it, then, I demand of thee once more, that thou hast suffered a brother to bring a Jewish sorceress into this holy place?