The Saxon prisoners were accordingly removed, just as they introduced the monk Ambrose, who appeared to be in great perturbation.
“This is the real Deus vobiscum,” said Wamba, as he passed the reverend brother; “the others were but counterfeits.”
“Holy Mother,” said the monk, as he addressed the assembled knights, “I am at last safe and in Christian keeping!”
“Safe thou art,” replied De Bracy; “and for Christianity, here is the stout Baron Reginald Front-de-Bœuf, whose utter abomination is a Jew; and the good Knight Templar, Brian de Bois-Guilbert, whose trade is to slay Saracens; if these are not good marks of Christianity, I know no other which they bear about them.”
“Ye are friends and allies of our reverend father in God, Aymer, Prior of Jorvaulx,” said the monk, without noticing the tone of De Bracy’s reply; “ye owe him aid both by knightly faith and holy charity; for what saith the blessed St. Augustin, in his treatise De Civitate Dei—”
“What saith the devil!” interrupted Front-de-Bœuf; “or rather what dost thou say, Sir Priest? We have little time to hear texts from the holy fathers.”
“Sancta Maria!” ejaculated Father Ambrose, “how prompt to ire are these unhallowed laymen!—But be it known to you, brave knights, that certain murderous caitiffs, casting behind them fear of God, and reverence of His Church, and not regarding the bull of the Holy See, Si quis, suadente Diabolo—”
“Brother priest,” said the Templar, “all this we know or guess at—tell us plainly, is thy master, the Prior, made prisoner, and to whom?”
“Surely,” said Ambrose, “he is in the hands of the men of Belial, infesters of these woods, and contemners of the holy text, ’Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets nought of evil.’”
“Here is a new argument for our swords, sir,” said Front-de-Bœuf, turning to his companions; “and so, instead of reaching us any assistance, the Prior of Jorvaulx requests aid at our hands! A man is well helped of these lazy churchmen when he hath most to do !—But speak out, priest, and say at once, what doth thy master expect from us?”
“So please you,” said Ambrose, “violent hands having been imposed on my reverend superior, contrary to the holy ordinance which I did already quote, and the men of Belial having rifled his mails and budgets, and stripped him of two hundred marks of pure refined gold, they do yet demand of him a large sum beside, ere they will suffer him to depart from their uncircumcised hands. Wherefore, the reverend father in God prays you, as his dear friends, to rescue him, either by paying down the ransom at which they hold him, or by force of arms, at your best discretion.”
“The foul fiend quell the Prior!” said Front-de-Bœuf; “his morning’s draught has been a deep one. When did thy master hear of a Norman baron unbuckling his purse to relieve a churchman, whose bags are ten times as weighty as ours?—And how can we do aught by valour to free him, that are cooped up here by ten times our number, and expect an assault every moment?”
“And that was what I was about to tell you,” said the monk, “had your hastiness allowed me time. But, God help me, I am old, and these foul onslaughts distract an aged man’s brain. Nevertheless, it is of verity that they assemble a camp, and raise a bank against the walls of this castle.”
“To the battlements!” cried De Bracy, “and let us mark what these knaves do without;” and so saying, he opened a latticed window which led to a sort of bartisan or projecting balcony, and immediately called from thence to those in the apartment—“St. Dennis, but the old monk hath brought true tidings! They