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The soldiers at once surrounded the place, but Malvoisin had gone up a tree. The guards fired through the woods, calling on him to surrender, while he sat safe and happy in one of the highest branches, watching the search for him.
"Thou art mad," answered Malvoisin; "thou mayst thus indeed utterly ruin thyself, but canst not even find a chance thereby to save the life of this Jewess, which seems so precious in thine eyes. Beaumanoir will name another of the Order to defend his judgment in thy place, and the accused will as assuredly perish as if thou hadst taken the duty imposed on thee."
"Gurth," said the Jester, "I know thou thinkest me a fool, or thou wouldst not be so rash in putting thy head into my mouth. One word to Reginald Front-de-Boeuf, or Philip de Malvoisin, that thou hast spoken treason against the Norman, and thou art but a cast-away swineherd, thou wouldst waver on one of these trees as a terror to all evil speakers against dignities."
Malvoisin was thin and pale after his three weeks' confinement in cells, but whenever I caught his eye he gave me a smile whose radiance no prison-cell could dim. When he came into the room, every one knew it. He had a presence which even the guards felt, I think.
"And he arrests Malvoisin," said the King, raising his visor, "by the order of Richard Plantagenet, here present. Conrade Mont-Fitchet, it is well for thee thou art born no subject of mine. But for thee, Malvoisin, thou diest with thy brother Philip, ere the world be a week older." "I will resist thy doom," said the Grand Master.
"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."
The cell next to mine, on which I depended for the light to read by, was darkened. I was right in the middle of "The Harvester." I tried it by the crack between my cell and that of Malvoisin, but the light was too dim and made my eyes ache. However, after two days a light-cell prisoner was put in, and I was able to go on with my story. Malvoisin did all he could to make my punishment endurable.
Cedric the Saxon, overjoyed at the discomfiture of the Templar, and still more so at the miscarriage of his two malevolent neighbours, Front-de-Boeuf and Malvoisin, had, with his body half stretched over the balcony, accompanied the victor in each course, not with his eyes only, but with his whole heart and soul.
"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-Boeuf 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."
"That large decayed oak," he said, "marks the boundaries over which Front-de-Boeuf claims authority we are long since far from those of Malvoisin. There is now no fear of pursuit." "May the wheels of their chariots be taken off," said the Jew, "like those of the host of Pharaoh, that they may drive heavily!
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