and when thou shalt see a red flag wave from the turret on the eastern angle of the donjon, press the Normans hard —they will then have enough to do within, and you may win the wall in spite both of bow and mangonel.—Begone, I pray thee—follow thine own fate, and leave me to mine.”

Cedric would have inquired further into the purpose which she thus darkly announced, but the stern voice of Front-de-Bœuf was heard exclaiming, “Where tarries this loitering priest? By the scallop-shell of Compostella, I will make a martyr of him, if he loiters here to hatch treason among my domestics!

“What a true prophet,” said Ulrica, “is an evil con-science! But heed him not-out and to thy people—cry your Saxon onslaught, and let them sing their war-song of Rollo, if they will; vengeance shall bear a burden to it.”

As she thus spoke, she vanished through a private door, and Reginald Front-de-Bœuf entered the apartment. Cedric, with some difficulty, compelled himself to make obeisance to the haughty baron, who returned his courtesy with a slight inclination of the head.

“Thy penitents, father, have made a long shrift—it is the better for them, since it is the last they shall ever make. Hast thou prepared them for death?”

“I found them,” said Cedric, in such French as he could command, “expecting the worst, from the moment they knew into whose power they had fallen.”

“How now, Sir Friar,” replied Front-de-Bœuf, “thy speech, methinks, smacks of a Saxon tongue?”

“I was bred in the convent of St. Withold of Burton,” answered Cedric.

“Ay?” said the baron; “it had been better for thee to have been a Norman, and better for my purpose too; but need has no choice of messengers. That St. Withold’s of Burton is a howlet’s nest worth the harrying. The day will soon come that the frock shall protect the Saxon as little as the mail-coat.”

“God’s will be done,” said Cedric, in a voice tremulous with passion, which Front-de-Bœuf imputed to fear.

“I see,” said he, “thou dreamest already that our men-at-arms are in thy refectory and thy ale-vaults. But do me one cast of thy holy office, and, come what list of others, thou shalt sleep as safe in thy cell as a snail within his shell of proof.”

“Speak your commands,” said Cedric, with suppressed emotion.

“Follow me through this passage, then, that I may dismiss thee by the postern.”

And as he strode on his way before the supposed friar, Front-de-B/oe/uf thus schooled him in the part which he desired he should act.

“Thou seest, Sir Friar, yon herd of Saxon swine, who have dared to environ this castle of Torquilstone.—Tell them whatever thou hast a mind of the weakness of this fortalice, or aught else that can detain them before it for twenty-four hours. Meantime bear thou this scroll.—But soft—canst read, Sir Priest?”

“Not a jot I,” answered Cedric, “save on my breviary; and then I know the characters, because I have the holy service by heart, praised be Our Lady and St. Withold!”

The fitter messenger for my purpose.—Carry thou this scroll to the castle of Philip de Malvoisin; say it cometh from me, and is written by the Templar Brian de Bois-Guilbert, and that I pray him to send it to York with all the speed man and horse can make. Meanwhile, tell him to doubt nothing, he shall find us whole and sound behind our battlement.—Shame on it, that we should be compelled to hide thus by a pack of runagates, who are wont to fly even at the flash of our pennons and the tramp of our horses! I say to thee, priest, contrive some cast of thine art to keep the knaves where they are, until our friends