Chapter: This wandering race, sever'd from other men,
     Boast yet their intercourse with human arts;
     The seas, the woods, the deserts, which they haunt,
     Find them acquainted with their secret treasures:
     And unregarded herbs, and flowers, and blossoms,
     Display undreamt-of powers when gather'd by them.
     --The Jew

Our history must needs retrograde for the space of a few pages, to
inform the reader of certain passages material to his understanding the
rest of this important narrative. His own intelligence may indeed have
easily anticipated that, when Ivanhoe sunk down, and seemed abandoned by
all the world, it was the importunity of Rebecca which prevailed on her
father to have the gallant young warrior transported from the lists to
the house which for the time the Jews inhabited in the suburbs of Ashby.

It would not have been difficult to have persuaded Isaac to this step in
any other circumstances, for his disposition was kind and grateful. But
he had also the prejudices and scrupulous timidity of his persecuted
people, and those were to be conquered.

"Holy Abraham!" he exclaimed, "he is a good youth, and my heart bleeds
to see the gore trickle down his rich embroidered hacqueton, and his
corslet of goodly price--but to carry him to our house!--damsel, hast
thou well considered?--he is a Christian, and by our law we may not deal
with the stranger and Gentile, save for the advantage of our commerce."

"Speak not so, my dear father," replied Rebecca; "we may not indeed mix
with them in banquet and in jollity; but in wounds and in misery, the
Gentile becometh the Jew's brother."

"I would I knew what the Rabbi Jacob Ben Tudela would opine on it,"
replied Isaac;--"nevertheless, the good youth must not bleed to death.
Let Seth and Reuben bear him to Ashby."

"Nay, let them place him in my litter," said Rebecca; "I will mount one
of the palfreys."

"That were to expose thee to the gaze of those dogs of Ishmael and of
Edom," whispered Isaac, with a suspicious glance towards the crowd of
knights and squires. But Rebecca was already busied in carrying her
charitable purpose into effect, and listed not what he said, until
Isaac, seizing the sleeve of her mantle, again exclaimed, in a hurried
voice--"Beard of Aaron!--what if the youth perish!--if he die in our
custody, shall we not be held guilty of his blood, and be torn to pieces
by the multitude?"

"He will not die, my father," said Rebecca, gently extricating herself
from the grasp of Isaac "he will not die unless we abandon him; and if
so, we are indeed answerable for his blood to God and to man."

"Nay," said Isaac, releasing his hold, "it grieveth me as much to see
the drops of his blood, as if they were so many golden byzants from mine
own purse; and I well know, that the lessons of Miriam, daughter of the
Rabbi Manasses of Byzantium whose soul is in Paradise, have made thee
skilful in the art of healing, and that thou knowest the craft of herbs,
and the force of elixirs. Therefore, do as thy mind giveth thee--thou
art a good damsel, a blessing, and a crown, and a song of rejoicing unto
me and unto my house, and unto the people of my fathers."

The apprehensions of Isaac, however, were not ill founded; and the
generous and grateful benevolence of his daughter exposed her, on her
return to Ashby, to the unhallowed gaze of Brian de Bois-Guilbert. The
Templar twice passed and repassed them on the road, fixing his bold
and ardent look on the beautiful Jewess; and we have already seen the
consequences of the admiration which her charms excited when accident
threw her into the power of that unprincipled voluptuary.

Rebecca lost no time in causing the patient to be transported to their
temporary dwelling, and proceeded with her own hands to examine and
to bind up his wounds. The youngest reader of romances and romantic
ballads, must recollect how often the females, during the dark ages, as
they are called, were initiated into the mysteries of surgery, and how
frequently the gallant knight submitted the wounds of his person to her
cure, whose eyes had yet more deeply penetrated his heart.

But the Jews, both male and female, possessed and practised the medical
science in all its branches, and the monarchs and powerful barons of the
time frequently committed themselves to the charge of some experienced
sage among this despised people, when wounded or in sickness. The aid
of the Jewish physicians was not the less eagerly sought after, though
a general belief prevailed among the Christians, that the Jewish Rabbins
were deeply acquainted with the occult sciences, and particularly with
the cabalistical art, which had its name and origin in the studies of
the sages of Israel. Neither did the Rabbins disown such acquaintance
with supernatural arts, which added nothing (for what could add aught?)
to the hatred with which their nation was regarded, while it diminished
the contempt with which that malevolence was mingled. A Jewish magician
might be the subject of equal abhorrence with a Jewish usurer, but he
could not be equally despised. It is besides probable, considering the
wonderful cures they are said to have performed, that the Jews possessed
some secrets of the healing art peculiar to themselves, and which, with
the exclusive spirit arising out of their condition, they took great
care to conceal from the Christians amongst whom they dwelt.

The beautiful Rebecca had been heedfully brought up in all the knowledge
proper to her nation, which her apt and powerful mind had retained,
arranged, and enlarged, in the course of a progress beyond her years,
her sex, and even the age in which she lived. Her knowledge of medicine
and of the healing art had been acquired under an aged Jewess, the
daughter of one of their most celebrated doctors, who loved Rebecca as
her own child, and was believed to have communicated to her secrets,
which had been left to herself by her sage father at the same time, and
under the same circumstances. The fate of Miriam had indeed been to fall
a sacrifice to the fanaticism of the times; but her secrets had survived
in her apt pupil.

Rebecca, thus endowed with knowledge as with beauty, was universally
revered and admired by her own tribe, who almost regarded her as one of
those gifted women mentioned in the sacred history. Her father himself,
out of reverence for her talents, which involuntarily mingled itself
with his unbounded affection, permitted the maiden a greater liberty
than was usually indulged to those of her sex by the habits of her
people, and was, as we have just seen, frequently guided by her opinion,
even in preference to his own.

When Ivanhoe reached the habitation of Isaac, he was still in a state
of unconsciousness, owing to the profuse loss of blood which had taken
place during his exertions in the lists. Rebecca examined the wound,
and having applied to it such vulnerary remedies as her art prescribed,
informed her father that if fever could be averted, of which the great
bleeding rendered her little apprehensive, and if the healing balsam of
Miriam retained its virtue, there was nothing to fear for his guest's
life, and that he might with safety travel to York with them on the
ensuing day. Isaac looked a little blank at this annunciation. His
charity would willingly have stopped short at Ashby, or at most would
have left the wounded Christian to be tended in the house where he
was residing at present, with an assurance to the Hebrew to whom it
belonged, that all expenses should be duly discharged. To this, however,
Rebecca opposed many reasons, of which we shall only mention two that
had peculiar weight with Isaac. The one was, that she would on no
account put the phial of precious balsam into the hands of another
physician even of her own tribe, lest that valuable mystery should be
discovered; the other, that this wounded knight, Wilfred of Ivanhoe, was
an intimate favourite of Richard Coeur-de-Lion, and that, in case the
monarch should return, Isaac, who had supplied his brother John with
treasure to prosecute his rebellious purposes, would stand in no small
need of a powerful protector who enjoyed Richard's favour.

"Thou art speaking but sooth, Rebecca," said Isaac, giving way to these
weighty arguments--"it were an offending of Heaven to betray the secrets
of the blessed Miriam; for the good which Heaven giveth, is not rashly
to be squandered upon others, whether it be talents of gold and
shekels of silver, or whether it be the secret mysteries of a wise
physician--assuredly they should be preserved to those to whom
Providence hath vouchsafed them. And him whom the Nazarenes of England
call the Lion's Heart, assuredly it were better for me to fall into the
hands of a strong lion of Idumea than into his, if he shall have got
assurance of my dealing with his brother. Wherefore I will lend ear to
thy counsel, and this youth shall journey with us unto York, and our
house shall be as a home to him until his wounds shall be healed. And if
he of the Lion Heart shall return to the land, as is now noised abroad,
then shall this Wilfred of Ivanhoe be unto me as a wall of defence, when
the king's displeasure shall burn high against thy father. And if he
doth not return, this Wilfred may natheless repay us our charges when he
shall gain treasure by the strength of his spear and of his sword, even
as he did yesterday and this day also. For the youth is a good youth,
and keepeth the day which he appointeth, and restoreth that which he
borroweth, and succoureth the Israelite, even the child of my father's
house, when he is encompassed by strong thieves and sons of Belial."

It was not until evening was nearly closed that Ivanhoe was restored to
consciousness of his situation. He awoke from a broken slumber, under
the confused impressions which are naturally attendant on the recovery
from a state of insensibility. He was unable for some time to recall
exactly to memory the circumstances which had preceded his fall in the
lists, or to make out any connected chain of the events in which he had
been engaged upon the yesterday. A sense of wounds and injury, joined
to great weakness and exhaustion, was mingled with the recollection
of blows dealt and received, of steeds rushing upon each other,
overthrowing and overthrown--of shouts and clashing of arms, and all the
heady tumult of a confused fight. An effort to draw aside the curtain of
his couch was in some degree successful, although rendered difficult by
the pain of his wound.

To his great surprise he found himself in a room magnificently
furnished, but having cushions instead of chairs to rest upon, and in
other respects partaking so much of Oriental costume, that he began to
doubt whether he had not, during his sleep, been transported back
again to the land of Palestine. The impression was increased, when,
the tapestry being drawn aside, a female form, dressed in a rich habit,
which partook more of the Eastern taste than that of Europe, glided
through the door which it concealed, and was followed by a swarthy
domestic.

As the wounded knight was about to address this fair apparition, she
imposed silence by placing her slender finger upon her ruby lips, while
the attendant, approaching him, proceeded to uncover Ivanhoe's side, and
the lovely Jewess satisfied herself that the bandage was in its place,
and the wound doing well. She performed her task with a graceful and
dignified simplicity and modesty, which might, even in more civilized
days, have served to redeem it from whatever might seem repugnant to
female delicacy. The idea of so young and beautiful a person engaged in
attendance on a sick-bed, or in dressing the wound of one of a different
sex, was melted away and lost in that of a beneficent being contributing
her effectual aid to relieve pain, and to avert the stroke of death.
Rebecca's few and brief directions were given in the Hebrew language
to the old domestic; and he, who had been frequently her assistant in
similar cases, obeyed them without reply.

The accents of an unknown tongue, however harsh they might have sounded
when uttered by another, had, coming from the beautiful Rebecca,
the romantic and pleasing effect which fancy ascribes to the charms
pronounced by some beneficent fairy, unintelligible, indeed, to the ear,
but, from the sweetness of utterance, and benignity of aspect, which
accompanied them, touching and affecting to the heart. Without making
an attempt at further question, Ivanhoe suffered them in silence to take
the measures they thought most proper for his recovery; and it was not
until those were completed, and this kind physician about to retire,
that his curiosity could no longer be suppressed.--"Gentle maiden," he
began in the Arabian tongue, with which his Eastern travels had rendered
him familiar, and which he thought most likely to be understood by the
turban'd and caftan'd damsel who stood before him--"I pray you, gentle
maiden, of your courtesy---"

But here he was interrupted by his fair physician, a smile which she
could scarce suppress dimpling for an instant a face, whose general
expression was that of contemplative melancholy. "I am of England, Sir
Knight, and speak the English tongue, although my dress and my lineage
belong to another climate."

"Noble damsel,"--again the Knight of Ivanhoe began; and again Rebecca
hastened to interrupt him.

"Bestow not on me, Sir Knight," she said, "the epithet of noble. It is
well you should speedily know that your handmaiden is a poor Jewess, the
daughter of that Isaac of York, to whom you were so lately a good and
kind lord. It well becomes him, and those of his household, to render to
you such careful tendance as your present state necessarily demands."

I know not whether the fair Rowena would have been altogether satisfied
with the species of emotion with which her devoted knight had hitherto
gazed on the beautiful features, and fair form, and lustrous eyes, of
the lovely Rebecca; eyes whose brilliancy was shaded, and, as it were,
mellowed, by the fringe of her long silken eyelashes, and which a
minstrel would have compared to the evening star darting its rays
through a bower of jessamine. But Ivanhoe was too good a Catholic to
retain the same class of feelings towards a Jewess. This Rebecca had
foreseen, and for this very purpose she had hastened to mention her
father's name and lineage; yet--for the fair and wise daughter of Isaac
was not without a touch of female weakness--she could not but sigh
internally when the glance of respectful admiration, not altogether
unmixed with tenderness, with which Ivanhoe had hitherto regarded his
unknown benefactress, was exchanged at once for a manner cold, composed,
and collected, and fraught with no deeper feeling than that which
expressed a grateful sense of courtesy received from an unexpected
quarter, and from one of an inferior race. It was not that Ivanhoe's
former carriage expressed more than that general devotional homage which
youth always pays to beauty; yet it was mortifying that one word should
operate as a spell to remove poor Rebecca, who could not be supposed
altogether ignorant of her title to such homage, into a degraded class,
to whom it could not be honourably rendered.

But the gentleness and candour of Rebecca's nature imputed no fault to
Ivanhoe for sharing in the universal prejudices of his age and religion.
On the contrary the fair Jewess, though sensible her patient now
regarded her as one of a race of reprobation, with whom it was
disgraceful to hold any beyond the most necessary intercourse, ceased
not to pay the same patient and devoted attention to his safety and
convalescence. She informed him of the necessity they were under of
removing to York, and of her father's resolution to transport him
thither, and tend him in his own house until his health should be
restored. Ivanhoe expressed great repugnance to this plan, which he
grounded on unwillingness to give farther trouble to his benefactors.

"Was there not," he said, "in Ashby, or near it, some Saxon franklin,
or even some wealthy peasant, who would endure the burden of a wounded
countryman's residence with him until he should be again able to bear
his armour?--Was there no convent of Saxon endowment, where he could be
received?--Or could he not be transported as far as Burton, where he was
sure to find hospitality with Waltheoff, the Abbot of St Withold's, to
whom he was related?"

"Any, the worst of these harbourages," said Rebecca, with a melancholy
smile, "would unquestionably be more fitting for your residence than the
abode of a despised Jew; yet, Sir Knight, unless you would dismiss your
physician, you cannot change your lodging. Our nation, as you well know,
can cure wounds, though we deal not in inflicting them; and in our own
family, in particular, are secrets which have been handed down since
the days of Solomon, and of which you have already experienced the
advantages. No Nazarene--I crave your forgiveness, Sir Knight--no
Christian leech, within the four seas of Britain, could enable you to
bear your corslet within a month."

"And how soon wilt THOU enable me to brook it?" said Ivanhoe,
impatiently.

"Within eight days, if thou wilt be patient and conformable to my
directions," replied Rebecca.

"By Our Blessed Lady," said Wilfred, "if it be not a sin to name her
here, it is no time for me or any true knight to be bedridden; and if
thou accomplish thy promise, maiden, I will pay thee with my casque full
of crowns, come by them as I may."

"I will accomplish my promise," said Rebecca, "and thou shalt bear thine
armour on the eighth day from hence, if thou will grant me but one boon
in the stead of the silver thou dost promise me."

"If it be within my power, and such as a true Christian knight may yield
to one of thy people," replied Ivanhoe, "I will grant thy boon blithely
and thankfully."

"Nay," answered Rebecca, "I will but pray of thee to believe
henceforward that a Jew may do good service to a Christian, without
desiring other guerdon than the blessing of the Great Father who made
both Jew and Gentile."

"It were sin to doubt it, maiden," replied Ivanhoe; "and I repose myself
on thy skill without further scruple or question, well trusting you will
enable me to bear my corslet on the eighth day. And now, my kind leech,
let me enquire of the news abroad. What of the noble Saxon Cedric and
his household?--what of the lovely Lady--" He stopt, as if unwilling
to speak Rowena's name in the house of a Jew--"Of her, I mean, who was
named Queen of the tournament?"

"And who was selected by you, Sir Knight, to hold that dignity, with
judgment which was admired as much as your valour," replied Rebecca.

The blood which Ivanhoe had lost did not prevent a flush from crossing
his cheek, feeling that he had incautiously betrayed a deep interest in
Rowena by the awkward attempt he had made to conceal it.

"It was less of her I would speak," said he, "than of Prince John; and I
would fain know somewhat of a faithful squire, and why he now attends me
not?"

"Let me use my authority as a leech," answered Rebecca, "and enjoin you
to keep silence, and avoid agitating reflections, whilst I apprize you
of what you desire to know. Prince John hath broken off the tournament,
and set forward in all haste towards York, with the nobles, knights, and
churchmen of his party, after collecting such sums as they could wring,
by fair means or foul, from those who are esteemed the wealthy of the
land. It is said he designs to assume his brother's crown."

"Not without a blow struck in its defence," said Ivanhoe, raising
himself upon the couch, "if there were but one true subject in England I
will fight for Richard's title with the best of them--ay, one or two, in
his just quarrel!"

"But that you may be able to do so," said Rebecca touching his shoulder
with her hand, "you must now observe my directions, and remain quiet."

"True, maiden," said Ivanhoe, "as quiet as these disquieted times will
permit--And of Cedric and his household?"

"His steward came but brief while since," said the Jewess, "panting with
haste, to ask my father for certain monies, the price of wool the growth
of Cedric's flocks, and from him I learned that Cedric and Athelstane
of Coningsburgh had left Prince John's lodging in high displeasure, and
were about to set forth on their return homeward."

"Went any lady with them to the banquet?" said Wilfred.

"The Lady Rowena," said Rebecca, answering the question with more
precision than it had been asked--"The Lady Rowena went not to the
Prince's feast, and, as the steward reported to us, she is now on her
journey back to Rotherwood, with her guardian Cedric. And touching your
faithful squire Gurth---"

"Ha!" exclaimed the knight, "knowest thou his name?--But thou dost," he
immediately added, "and well thou mayst, for it was from thy hand, and,
as I am now convinced, from thine own generosity of spirit, that he
received but yesterday a hundred zecchins."

"Speak not of that," said Rebecca, blushing deeply; "I see how easy it
is for the tongue to betray what the heart would gladly conceal."

"But this sum of gold," said Ivanhoe, gravely, "my honour is concerned
in repaying it to your father."

"Let it be as thou wilt," said Rebecca, "when eight days have passed
away; but think not, and speak not now, of aught that may retard thy
recovery."

"Be it so, kind maiden," said Ivanhoe; "I were most ungrateful to
dispute thy commands. But one word of the fate of poor Gurth, and I have
done with questioning thee."

"I grieve to tell thee, Sir Knight," answered the Jewess, "that he is in
custody by the order of Cedric."--And then observing the distress which
her communication gave to Wilfred, she instantly added, "But the steward
Oswald said, that if nothing occurred to renew his master's displeasure
against him, he was sure that Cedric would pardon Gurth, a faithful
serf, and one who stood high in favour, and who had but committed
this error out of the love which he bore to Cedric's son. And he said,
moreover, that he and his comrades, and especially Wamba the Jester,
were resolved to warn Gurth to make his escape by the way, in case
Cedric's ire against him could not be mitigated."

"Would to God they may keep their purpose!" said Ivanhoe; "but it seems
as if I were destined to bring ruin on whomsoever hath shown kindness to
me. My king, by whom I was honoured and distinguished, thou seest
that the brother most indebted to him is raising his arms to grasp his
crown;--my regard hath brought restraint and trouble on the fairest of
her sex;--and now my father in his mood may slay this poor bondsman
but for his love and loyal service to me!--Thou seest, maiden, what an
ill-fated wretch thou dost labour to assist; be wise, and let me go, ere
the misfortunes which track my footsteps like slot-hounds, shall involve
thee also in their pursuit."

"Nay," said Rebecca, "thy weakness and thy grief, Sir Knight, make thee
miscalculate the purposes of Heaven. Thou hast been restored to thy
country when it most needed the assistance of a strong hand and a true
heart, and thou hast humbled the pride of thine enemies and those of thy
king, when their horn was most highly exalted, and for the evil which
thou hast sustained, seest thou not that Heaven has raised thee a helper
and a physician, even among the most despised of the land?--Therefore,
be of good courage, and trust that thou art preserved for some marvel
which thine arm shall work before this people. Adieu--and having taken
the medicine which I shall send thee by the hand of Reuben, compose
thyself again to rest, that thou mayest be the more able to endure the
journey on the succeeding day."

Ivanhoe was convinced by the reasoning, and obeyed the directions, of
Rebecca. The drought which Reuben administered was of a sedative
and narcotic quality, and secured the patient sound and undisturbed
slumbers. In the morning his kind physician found him entirely free from
feverish symptoms, and fit to undergo the fatigue of a journey.

He was deposited in the horse-litter which had brought him from the
lists, and every precaution taken for his travelling with ease. In one
circumstance only even the entreaties of Rebecca were unable to secure
sufficient attention to the accommodation of the wounded knight. Isaac,
like the enriched traveller of Juvenal's tenth satire, had ever the fear
of robbery before his eyes, conscious that he would be alike accounted
fair game by the marauding Norman noble, and by the Saxon outlaw. He
therefore journeyed at a great rate, and made short halts, and shorter
repasts, so that he passed by Cedric and Athelstane who had several
hours the start of him, but who had been delayed by their protracted
feasting at the convent of Saint Withold's. Yet such was the virtue of
Miriam's balsam, or such the strength of Ivanhoe's constitution, that
he did not sustain from the hurried journey that inconvenience which his
kind physician had apprehended.

In another point of view, however, the Jew's haste proved somewhat more
than good speed. The rapidity with which he insisted on travelling, bred
several disputes between him and the party whom he had hired to attend
him as a guard. These men were Saxons, and not free by any means from
the national love of ease and good living which the Normans stigmatized
as laziness and gluttony. Reversing Shylock's position, they had
accepted the employment in hopes of feeding upon the wealthy Jew, and
were very much displeased when they found themselves disappointed,
by the rapidity with which he insisted on their proceeding. They
remonstrated also upon the risk of damage to their horses by these
forced marches. Finally, there arose betwixt Isaac and his satellites a
deadly feud, concerning the quantity of wine and ale to be allowed for
consumption at each meal. And thus it happened, that when the alarm of
danger approached, and that which Isaac feared was likely to come upon
him, he was deserted by the discontented mercenaries on whose protection
he had relied, without using the means necessary to secure their
attachment.

In this deplorable condition the Jew, with his daughter and her wounded
patient, were found by Cedric, as has already been noticed, and soon
afterwards fell into the power of De Bracy and his confederates.
Little notice was at first taken of the horse-litter, and it might have
remained behind but for the curiosity of De Bracy, who looked into it
under the impression that it might contain the object of his enterprise,
for Rowena had not unveiled herself. But De Bracy's astonishment was
considerable, when he discovered that the litter contained a wounded
man, who, conceiving himself to have fallen into the power of Saxon
outlaws, with whom his name might be a protection for himself and his
friends, frankly avowed himself to be Wilfred of Ivanhoe.

The ideas of chivalrous honour, which, amidst his wildness and levity,
never utterly abandoned De Bracy, prohibited him from doing the knight
any injury in his defenceless condition, and equally interdicted his
betraying him to Front-de-Boeuf, who would have had no scruples to put
to death, under any circumstances, the rival claimant of the fief of
Ivanhoe. On the other hand, to liberate a suitor preferred by the Lady
Rowena, as the events of the tournament, and indeed Wilfred's previous
banishment from his father's house, had made matter of notoriety, was
a pitch far above the flight of De Bracy's generosity. A middle
course betwixt good and evil was all which he found himself capable of
adopting, and he commanded two of his own squires to keep close by the
litter, and to suffer no one to approach it. If questioned, they were
directed by their master to say, that the empty litter of the Lady
Rowena was employed to transport one of their comrades who had been
wounded in the scuffle. On arriving at Torquilstone, while the Knight
Templar and the lord of that castle were each intent upon their own
schemes, the one on the Jew's treasure, and the other on his daughter,
De Bracy's squires conveyed Ivanhoe, still under the name of a wounded
comrade, to a distant apartment. This explanation was accordingly
returned by these men to Front-de-Boeuf, when he questioned them why
they did not make for the battlements upon the alarm.

"A wounded companion!" he replied in great wrath and astonishment. "No
wonder that churls and yeomen wax so presumptuous as even to lay leaguer
before castles, and that clowns and swineherds send defiances to nobles,
since men-at-arms have turned sick men's nurses, and Free Companions are
grown keepers of dying folk's curtains, when the castle is about to be
assailed.--To the battlements, ye loitering villains!" he exclaimed,
raising his stentorian voice till the arches around rung again, "to the
battlements, or I will splinter your bones with this truncheon!"

The men sulkily replied, "that they desired nothing better than to go to
the battlements, providing Front-de-Boeuf would bear them out with their
master, who had commanded them to tend the dying man."

"The dying man, knaves!" rejoined the Baron; "I promise thee we shall
all be dying men an we stand not to it the more stoutly. But I
will relieve the guard upon this caitiff companion of yours.--Here,
Urfried--hag--fiend of a Saxon witch--hearest me not?--tend me this
bedridden fellow since he must needs be tended, whilst these knaves
use their weapons.--Here be two arblasts, comrades, with windlaces and
quarrells [34]--to the barbican with you, and see you drive each bolt
through a Saxon brain."

The men, who, like most of their description, were fond of enterprise
and detested inaction, went joyfully to the scene of danger as they were
commanded, and thus the charge of Ivanhoe was transferred to Urfried,
or Ulrica. But she, whose brain was burning with remembrance of injuries
and with hopes of vengeance, was readily induced to devolve upon Rebecca
the care of her patient.




     Ascend the watch-tower yonder, valiant soldier,
     Look on the field, and say how goes the battle.
     --Schiller's Maid of Orleans

A moment of peril is often also a moment of open-hearted kindness and
affection. We are thrown off our guard by the general agitation of our
feelings, and betray the intensity of those, which, at more tranquil
periods, our prudence at least conceals, if it cannot altogether
suppress them. In finding herself once more by the side of Ivanhoe,
Rebecca was astonished at the keen sensation of pleasure which she
experienced, even at a time when all around them both was danger, if not
despair. As she felt his pulse, and enquired after his health, there was
a softness in her touch and in her accents implying a kinder interest
than she would herself have been pleased to have voluntarily expressed.
Her voice faltered and her hand trembled, and it was only the cold
question of Ivanhoe, "Is it you, gentle maiden?" which recalled her to
herself, and reminded her the sensations which she felt were not and
could not be mutual. A sigh escaped, but it was scarce audible; and the
questions which she asked the knight concerning his state of health were
put in the tone of calm friendship. Ivanhoe answered her hastily that
he was, in point of health, as well, and better than he could have
expected--"Thanks," he said, "dear Rebecca, to thy helpful skill."

"He calls me DEAR Rebecca," said the maiden to herself, "but it is in
the cold and careless tone which ill suits the word. His war-horse--his
hunting hound, are dearer to him than the despised Jewess!"

"My mind, gentle maiden," continued Ivanhoe, "is more disturbed by
anxiety, than my body with pain. From the speeches of those men who
were my warders just now, I learn that I am a prisoner, and, if I judge
aright of the loud hoarse voice which even now dispatched them hence
on some military duty, I am in the castle of Front-de-Boeuf--If so, how
will this end, or how can I protect Rowena and my father?"

"He names not the Jew or Jewess," said Rebecca internally; "yet what is
our portion in him, and how justly am I punished by Heaven for
letting my thoughts dwell upon him!" She hastened after this brief
self-accusation to give Ivanhoe what information she could; but it
amounted only to this, that the Templar Bois-Guilbert, and the
Baron Front-de-Boeuf, were commanders within the castle; that it was
beleaguered from without, but by whom she knew not. She added, that
there was a Christian priest within the castle who might be possessed of
more information.

"A Christian priest!" said the knight, joyfully; "fetch him hither,
Rebecca, if thou canst--say a sick man desires his ghostly counsel--say
what thou wilt, but bring him--something I must do or attempt, but how
can I determine until I know how matters stand without?"

Rebecca in compliance with the wishes of Ivanhoe, made that attempt to
bring Cedric into the wounded Knight's chamber, which was defeated as we
have already seen by the interference of Urfried, who had also been on
the watch to intercept the supposed monk. Rebecca retired to communicate
to Ivanhoe the result of her errand.

They had not much leisure to regret the failure of this source of
intelligence, or to contrive by what means it might be supplied; for the
noise within the castle, occasioned by the defensive preparations which
had been considerable for some time, now increased into tenfold bustle
and clamour. The heavy, yet hasty step of the men-at-arms, traversed the
battlements or resounded on the narrow and winding passages and stairs
which led to the various bartisans and points of defence. The voices of
the knights were heard, animating their followers, or directing means
of defence, while their commands were often drowned in the clashing of
armour, or the clamorous shouts of those whom they addressed. Tremendous
as these sounds were, and yet more terrible from the awful event which
they presaged, there was a sublimity mixed with them, which Rebecca's
high-toned mind could feel even in that moment of terror. Her eye
kindled, although the blood fled from her cheeks; and there was a
strong mixture of fear, and of a thrilling sense of the sublime, as she
repeated, half whispering to herself, half speaking to her companion,
the sacred text,--"The quiver rattleth--the glittering spear and the
shield--the noise of the captains and the shouting!"

But Ivanhoe was like the war-horse of that sublime passage, glowing with
impatience at his inactivity, and with his ardent desire to mingle in
the affray of which these sounds were the introduction. "If I could
but drag myself," he said, "to yonder window, that I might see how
this brave game is like to go--If I had but bow to shoot a shaft, or
battle-axe to strike were it but a single blow for our deliverance!--It
is in vain--it is in vain--I am alike nerveless and weaponless!"

"Fret not thyself, noble knight," answered Rebecca, "the sounds have
ceased of a sudden--it may be they join not battle."

"Thou knowest nought of it," said Wilfred, impatiently; "this dead pause
only shows that the men are at their posts on the walls, and expecting
an instant attack; what we have heard was but the instant muttering of
the storm--it will burst anon in all its fury.--Could I but reach yonder
window!"

"Thou wilt but injure thyself by the attempt, noble knight," replied his
attendant. Observing his extreme solicitude, she firmly added, "I myself
will stand at the lattice, and describe to you as I can what passes
without."

"You must not--you shall not!" exclaimed Ivanhoe; "each lattice, each
aperture, will be soon a mark for the archers; some random shaft--"

"It shall be welcome!" murmured Rebecca, as with firm pace she ascended
two or three steps, which led to the window of which they spoke.

"Rebecca, dear Rebecca!" exclaimed Ivanhoe, "this is no maiden's
pastime--do not expose thyself to wounds and death, and render me for
ever miserable for having given the occasion; at least, cover thyself
with yonder ancient buckler, and show as little of your person at the
lattice as may be."

Following with wonderful promptitude the directions of Ivanhoe, and
availing herself of the protection of the large ancient shield, which
she placed against the lower part of the window, Rebecca, with tolerable
security to herself, could witness part of what was passing without the
castle, and report to Ivanhoe the preparations which the assailants were
making for the storm. Indeed the situation which she thus obtained was
peculiarly favourable for this purpose, because, being placed on an
angle of the main building, Rebecca could not only see what passed
beyond the precincts of the castle, but also commanded a view of the
outwork likely to be the first object of the meditated assault. It was
an exterior fortification of no great height or strength, intended
to protect the postern-gate, through which Cedric had been recently
dismissed by Front-de-Boeuf. The castle moat divided this species of
barbican from the rest of the fortress, so that, in case of its being
taken, it was easy to cut off the communication with the main building,
by withdrawing the temporary bridge. In the outwork was a sallyport
corresponding to the postern of the castle, and the whole was surrounded
by a strong palisade. Rebecca could observe, from the number of men
placed for the defence of this post, that the besieged entertained
apprehensions for its safety; and from the mustering of the assailants
in a direction nearly opposite to the outwork, it seemed no less plain
that it had been selected as a vulnerable point of attack.

These appearances she hastily communicated to Ivanhoe, and added, "The
skirts of the wood seem lined with archers, although only a few are
advanced from its dark shadow."

"Under what banner?" asked Ivanhoe.

"Under no ensign of war which I can observe," answered Rebecca.

"A singular novelty," muttered the knight, "to advance to storm such a
castle without pennon or banner displayed!--Seest thou who they be that
act as leaders?"

"A knight, clad in sable armour, is the most conspicuous," said the
Jewess; "he alone is armed from head to heel, and seems to assume the
direction of all around him."

"What device does he bear on his shield?" replied Ivanhoe.

"Something resembling a bar of iron, and a padlock painted blue on the
black shield." [35]

"A fetterlock and shacklebolt azure," said Ivanhoe; "I know not who may
bear the device, but well I ween it might now be mine own. Canst thou
not see the motto?"

"Scarce the device itself at this distance," replied Rebecca; "but when
the sun glances fair upon his shield, it shows as I tell you."

"Seem there no other leaders?" exclaimed the anxious enquirer.

"None of mark and distinction that I can behold from this station," said
Rebecca; "but, doubtless, the other side of the castle is also assailed.
They appear even now preparing to advance--God of Zion, protect
us!--What a dreadful sight!--Those who advance first bear huge shields
and defences made of plank; the others follow, bending their bows
as they come on.--They raise their bows!--God of Moses, forgive the
creatures thou hast made!"

Her description was here suddenly interrupted by the signal for assault,
which was given by the blast of a shrill bugle, and at once answered by
a flourish of the Norman trumpets from the battlements, which,
mingled with the deep and hollow clang of the nakers, (a species of
kettle-drum,) retorted in notes of defiance the challenge of the enemy.
The shouts of both parties augmented the fearful din, the assailants
crying, "Saint George for merry England!" and the Normans answering
them with loud cries of "En avant De Bracy!--Beau-seant!
Beau-seant!--Front-de-Boeuf a la rescousse!" according to the war-cries
of their different commanders.

It was not, however, by clamour that the contest was to be decided, and
the desperate efforts of the assailants were met by an equally vigorous
defence on the part of the besieged. The archers, trained by their
woodland pastimes to the most effective use of the long-bow, shot, to
use the appropriate phrase of the time, so "wholly together," that
no point at which a defender could show the least part of his person,
escaped their cloth-yard shafts. By this heavy discharge, which
continued as thick and sharp as hail, while, notwithstanding, every
arrow had its individual aim, and flew by scores together against each
embrasure and opening in the parapets, as well as at every window where
a defender either occasionally had post, or might be suspected to be
stationed,--by this sustained discharge, two or three of the garrison
were slain, and several others wounded. But, confident in their armour
of proof, and in the cover which their situation afforded, the followers
of Front-de-Boeuf, and his allies, showed an obstinacy in defence
proportioned to the fury of the attack and replied with the discharge
of their large cross-bows, as well as with their long-bows, slings, and
other missile weapons, to the close and continued shower of arrows;
and, as the assailants were necessarily but indifferently protected, did
considerably more damage than they received at their hand. The whizzing
of shafts and of missiles, on both sides, was only interrupted by the
shouts which arose when either side inflicted or sustained some notable
loss.

"And I must lie here like a bedridden monk," exclaimed Ivanhoe, "while
the game that gives me freedom or death is played out by the hand of
others!--Look from the window once again, kind maiden, but beware that
you are not marked by the archers beneath--Look out once more, and tell
me if they yet advance to the storm."

With patient courage, strengthened by the interval which she had
employed in mental devotion, Rebecca again took post at the lattice,
sheltering herself, however, so as not to be visible from beneath.

"What dost thou see, Rebecca?" again demanded the wounded knight.

"Nothing but the cloud of arrows flying so thick as to dazzle mine eyes,
and to hide the bowmen who shoot them."

"That cannot endure," said Ivanhoe; "if they press not right on to
carry the castle by pure force of arms, the archery may avail but little
against stone walls and bulwarks. Look for the Knight of the Fetterlock,
fair Rebecca, and see how he bears himself; for as the leader is, so
will his followers be."

"I see him not," said Rebecca.

"Foul craven!" exclaimed Ivanhoe; "does he blench from the helm when the
wind blows highest?"

"He blenches not! he blenches not!" said Rebecca, "I see him now; he
leads a body of men close under the outer barrier of the barbican. [36]
--They pull down the piles and palisades; they hew down the barriers
with axes.--His high black plume floats abroad over the throng, like
a raven over the field of the slain.--They have made a breach in the
barriers--they rush in--they are thrust back!--Front-de-Boeuf heads the
defenders; I see his gigantic form above the press. They throng again to
the breach, and the pass is disputed hand to hand, and man to man. God
of Jacob! it is the meeting of two fierce tides--the conflict of two
oceans moved by adverse winds!"

She turned her head from the lattice, as if unable longer to endure a
sight so terrible.

"Look forth again, Rebecca," said Ivanhoe, mistaking the cause of her
retiring; "the archery must in some degree have ceased, since they are
now fighting hand to hand.--Look again, there is now less danger."

Rebecca again looked forth, and almost immediately exclaimed, "Holy
prophets of the law! Front-de-Boeuf and the Black Knight fight hand
to hand on the breach, amid the roar of their followers, who watch the
progress of the strife--Heaven strike with the cause of the oppressed
and of the captive!" She then uttered a loud shriek, and exclaimed, "He
is down!--he is down!"

"Who is down?" cried Ivanhoe; "for our dear Lady's sake, tell me which
has fallen?"

"The Black Knight," answered Rebecca, faintly; then instantly again
shouted with joyful eagerness--"But no--but no!--the name of the Lord
of Hosts be blessed!--he is on foot again, and fights as if there
were twenty men's strength in his single arm--His sword is broken--he
snatches an axe from a yeoman--he presses Front-de-Boeuf with blow on
blow--The giant stoops and totters like an oak under the steel of the
woodman--he falls--he falls!"

"Front-de-Boeuf?" exclaimed Ivanhoe.

"Front-de-Boeuf!" answered the Jewess; "his men rush to the rescue,
headed by the haughty Templar--their united force compels the champion
to pause--They drag Front-de-Boeuf within the walls."

"The assailants have won the barriers, have they not?" said Ivanhoe.

"They have--they have!" exclaimed Rebecca--"and they press the besieged
hard upon the outer wall; some plant ladders, some swarm like bees, and
endeavour to ascend upon the shoulders of each other--down go stones,
beams, and trunks of trees upon their heads, and as fast as they
bear the wounded to the rear, fresh men supply their places in the
assault--Great God! hast thou given men thine own image, that it should
be thus cruelly defaced by the hands of their brethren!"

"Think not of that," said Ivanhoe; "this is no time for such
thoughts--Who yield?--who push their way?"

"The ladders are thrown down," replied Rebecca, shuddering; "the
soldiers lie grovelling under them like crushed reptiles--The besieged
have the better."

"Saint George strike for us!" exclaimed the knight; "do the false yeomen
give way?"

"No!" exclaimed Rebecca, "they bear themselves right yeomanly--the Black
Knight approaches the postern with his huge axe--the thundering blows
which he deals, you may hear them above all the din and shouts of
the battle--Stones and beams are hailed down on the bold champion--he
regards them no more than if they were thistle-down or feathers!"

"By Saint John of Acre," said Ivanhoe, raising himself joyfully on his
couch, "methought there was but one man in England that might do such a
deed!"

"The postern gate shakes," continued Rebecca; "it crashes--it is
splintered by his blows--they rush in--the outwork is won--Oh,
God!--they hurl the defenders from the battlements--they throw them
into the moat--O men, if ye be indeed men, spare them that can resist no
longer!"

"The bridge--the bridge which communicates with the castle--have they
won that pass?" exclaimed Ivanhoe.

"No," replied Rebecca, "The Templar has destroyed the plank on which
they crossed--few of the defenders escaped with him into the castle--the
shrieks and cries which you hear tell the fate of the others--Alas!--I
see it is still more difficult to look upon victory than upon battle."

"What do they now, maiden?" said Ivanhoe; "look forth yet again--this is
no time to faint at bloodshed."

"It is over for the time," answered Rebecca; "our friends strengthen
themselves within the outwork which they have mastered, and it affords
them so good a shelter from the foemen's shot, that the garrison only
bestow a few bolts on it from interval to interval, as if rather to
disquiet than effectually to injure them."

"Our friends," said Wilfred, "will surely not abandon an enterprise so
gloriously begun and so happily attained.--O no! I will put my faith
in the good knight whose axe hath rent heart-of-oak and bars of
iron.--Singular," he again muttered to himself, "if there be two who can
do a deed of such derring-do! [37]--a fetterlock, and a shacklebolt on
a field sable--what may that mean?--seest thou nought else, Rebecca, by
which the Black Knight may be distinguished?"

"Nothing," said the Jewess; "all about him is black as the wing of the
night raven. Nothing can I spy that can mark him further--but having
once seen him put forth his strength in battle, methinks I could know
him again among a thousand warriors. He rushes to the fray as if he were
summoned to a banquet. There is more than mere strength, there seems as
if the whole soul and spirit of the champion were given to every
blow which he deals upon his enemies. God assoilize him of the sin of
bloodshed!--it is fearful, yet magnificent, to behold how the arm and
heart of one man can triumph over hundreds."

"Rebecca," said Ivanhoe, "thou hast painted a hero; surely they rest
but to refresh their force, or to provide the means of crossing the
moat--Under such a leader as thou hast spoken this knight to be, there
are no craven fears, no cold-blooded delays, no yielding up a gallant
emprize; since the difficulties which render it arduous render it also
glorious. I swear by the honour of my house--I vow by the name of my
bright lady-love, I would endure ten years' captivity to fight one day
by that good knight's side in such a quarrel as this!"

"Alas," said Rebecca, leaving her station at the window, and approaching
the couch of the wounded knight, "this impatient yearning after
action--this struggling with and repining at your present weakness,
will not fail to injure your returning health--How couldst thou hope
to inflict wounds on others, ere that be healed which thou thyself hast
received?"

"Rebecca," he replied, "thou knowest not how impossible it is for one
trained to actions of chivalry to remain passive as a priest, or a
woman, when they are acting deeds of honour around him. The love of
battle is the food upon which we live--the dust of the 'melee' is the
breath of our nostrils! We live not--we wish not to live--longer than
while we are victorious and renowned--Such, maiden, are the laws of
chivalry to which we are sworn, and to which we offer all that we hold
dear."

"Alas!" said the fair Jewess, "and what is it, valiant knight, save an
offering of sacrifice to a demon of vain glory, and a passing through
the fire to Moloch?--What remains to you as the prize of all the blood
you have spilled--of all the travail and pain you have endured--of
all the tears which your deeds have caused, when death hath broken the
strong man's spear, and overtaken the speed of his war-horse?"

"What remains?" cried Ivanhoe; "Glory, maiden, glory! which gilds our
sepulchre and embalms our name."

"Glory?" continued Rebecca; "alas, is the rusted mail which hangs as a
hatchment over the champion's dim and mouldering tomb--is the defaced
sculpture of the inscription which the ignorant monk can hardly read to
the enquiring pilgrim--are these sufficient rewards for the sacrifice
of every kindly affection, for a life spent miserably that ye may
make others miserable? Or is there such virtue in the rude rhymes of
a wandering bard, that domestic love, kindly affection, peace and
happiness, are so wildly bartered, to become the hero of those ballads
which vagabond minstrels sing to drunken churls over their evening ale?"

"By the soul of Hereward!" replied the knight impatiently, "thou
speakest, maiden, of thou knowest not what. Thou wouldst quench the pure
light of chivalry, which alone distinguishes the noble from the base,
the gentle knight from the churl and the savage; which rates our life
far, far beneath the pitch of our honour; raises us victorious over
pain, toil, and suffering, and teaches us to fear no evil but disgrace.
Thou art no Christian, Rebecca; and to thee are unknown those high
feelings which swell the bosom of a noble maiden when her lover hath
done some deed of emprize which sanctions his flame. Chivalry!--why,
maiden, she is the nurse of pure and high affection--the stay of the
oppressed, the redresser of grievances, the curb of the power of the
tyrant--Nobility were but an empty name without her, and liberty finds
the best protection in her lance and her sword."

"I am, indeed," said Rebecca, "sprung from a race whose courage was
distinguished in the defence of their own land, but who warred not, even
while yet a nation, save at the command of the Deity, or in defending
their country from oppression. The sound of the trumpet wakes Judah no
longer, and her despised children are now but the unresisting victims
of hostile and military oppression. Well hast thou spoken, Sir
Knight,--until the God of Jacob shall raise up for his chosen people a
second Gideon, or a new Maccabeus, it ill beseemeth the Jewish damsel to
speak of battle or of war."

The high-minded maiden concluded the argument in a tone of sorrow, which
deeply expressed her sense of the degradation of her people, embittered
perhaps by the idea that Ivanhoe considered her as one not entitled
to interfere in a case of honour, and incapable of entertaining or
expressing sentiments of honour and generosity.

"How little he knows this bosom," she said, "to imagine that cowardice
or meanness of soul must needs be its guests, because I have censured
the fantastic chivalry of the Nazarenes! Would to heaven that the
shedding of mine own blood, drop by drop, could redeem the captivity of
Judah! Nay, would to God it could avail to set free my father, and this
his benefactor, from the chains of the oppressor! The proud Christian
should then see whether the daughter of God's chosen people dared not to
die as bravely as the vainest Nazarene maiden, that boasts her descent
from some petty chieftain of the rude and frozen north!"

She then looked towards the couch of the wounded knight.

"He sleeps," she said; "nature exhausted by sufferance and the waste
of spirits, his wearied frame embraces the first moment of temporary
relaxation to sink into slumber. Alas! is it a crime that I should look
upon him, when it may be for the last time?--When yet but a short space,
and those fair features will be no longer animated by the bold and
buoyant spirit which forsakes them not even in sleep!--When the nostril
shall be distended, the mouth agape, the eyes fixed and bloodshot; and
when the proud and noble knight may be trodden on by the lowest caitiff
of this accursed castle, yet stir not when the heel is lifted up against
him!--And my father!--oh, my father! evil is it with his daughter,
when his grey hairs are not remembered because of the golden locks of
youth!--What know I but that these evils are the messengers of Jehovah's
wrath to the unnatural child, who thinks of a stranger's captivity
before a parent's? who forgets the desolation of Judah, and looks upon
the comeliness of a Gentile and a stranger?--But I will tear this folly
from my heart, though every fibre bleed as I rend it away!"

She wrapped herself closely in her veil, and sat down at a distance
from the couch of the wounded knight, with her back turned towards it,
fortifying, or endeavouring to fortify her mind, not only against
the impending evils from without, but also against those treacherous
feelings which assailed her from within.




     Approach the chamber, look upon his bed.
     His is the passing of no peaceful ghost,
     Which, as the lark arises to the sky,
     'Mid morning's sweetest breeze and softest dew,
     Is wing'd to heaven by good men's sighs and tears!--
     Anselm parts otherwise.
     --Old Play

During the interval of quiet which followed the first success of the
besiegers, while the one party was preparing to pursue their advantage,
and the other to strengthen their means of defence, the Templar and De
Bracy held brief council together in the hall of the castle.

"Where is Front-de-Boeuf?" said the latter, who had superintended the
defence of the fortress on the other side; "men say he hath been slain."

"He lives," said the Templar, coolly, "lives as yet; but had he worn the
bull's head of which he bears the name, and ten plates of iron to fence
it withal, he must have gone down before yonder fatal axe. Yet a few
hours, and Front-de-Boeuf is with his fathers--a powerful limb lopped
off Prince John's enterprise."

"And a brave addition to the kingdom of Satan," said De Bracy; "this
comes of reviling saints and angels, and ordering images of holy things
and holy men to be flung down on the heads of these rascaille yeomen."

"Go to--thou art a fool," said the Templar; "thy superstition is upon a
level with Front-de-Boeuf's want of faith; neither of you can render a
reason for your belief or unbelief."

"Benedicite, Sir Templar," replied De Bracy, "pray you to keep better
rule with your tongue when I am the theme of it. By the Mother of
Heaven, I am a better Christian man than thou and thy fellowship; for
the 'bruit' goeth shrewdly out, that the most holy Order of the Temple
of Zion nurseth not a few heretics within its bosom, and that Sir Brian
de Bois-Guilbert is of the number."

"Care not thou for such reports," said the Templar; "but let us think of
making good the castle.--How fought these villain yeomen on thy side?"

"Like fiends incarnate," said De Bracy. "They swarmed close up to
the walls, headed, as I think, by the knave who won the prize at the
archery, for I knew his horn and baldric. And this is old Fitzurse's
boasted policy, encouraging these malapert knaves to rebel against us!
Had I not been armed in proof, the villain had marked me down seven
times with as little remorse as if I had been a buck in season. He told
every rivet on my armour with a cloth-yard shaft, that rapped against
my ribs with as little compunction as if my bones had been of iron--But
that I wore a shirt of Spanish mail under my plate-coat, I had been
fairly sped."

"But you maintained your post?" said the Templar. "We lost the outwork
on our part."

"That is a shrewd loss," said De Bracy; "the knaves will find cover
there to assault the castle more closely, and may, if not well watched,
gain some unguarded corner of a tower, or some forgotten window, and
so break in upon us. Our numbers are too few for the defence of every
point, and the men complain that they can nowhere show themselves, but
they are the mark for as many arrows as a parish-butt on a holyday even.
Front-de-Boeuf is dying too, so we shall receive no more aid from his
bull's head and brutal strength. How think you, Sir Brian, were we
not better make a virtue of necessity, and compound with the rogues by
delivering up our prisoners?"

"How?" exclaimed the Templar; "deliver up our prisoners, and stand an
object alike of ridicule and execration, as the doughty warriors who
dared by a night-attack to possess themselves of the persons of a party
of defenceless travellers, yet could not make good a strong castle
against a vagabond troop of outlaws, led by swineherds, jesters, and the
very refuse of mankind?--Shame on thy counsel, Maurice de Bracy!--The
ruins of this castle shall bury both my body and my shame, ere I consent
to such base and dishonourable composition."

"Let us to the walls, then," said De Bracy, carelessly; "that man never
breathed, be he Turk or Templar, who held life at lighter rate than I
do. But I trust there is no dishonour in wishing I had here some two
scores of my gallant troop of Free Companions?--Oh, my brave lances! if
ye knew but how hard your captain were this day bested, how soon should
I see my banner at the head of your clump of spears! And how short while
would these rabble villains stand to endure your encounter!"

"Wish for whom thou wilt," said the Templar, "but let us make
what defence we can with the soldiers who remain--They are chiefly
Front-de-Boeuf's followers, hated by the English for a thousand acts of
insolence and oppression."

"The better," said De Bracy; "the rugged slaves will defend themselves
to the last drop of their blood, ere they encounter the revenge of the
peasants without. Let us up and be doing, then, Brian de Bois-Guilbert;
and, live or die, thou shalt see Maurice de Bracy bear himself this day
as a gentleman of blood and lineage."

"To the walls!" answered the Templar; and they both ascended the
battlements to do all that skill could dictate, and manhood accomplish,
in defence of the place. They readily agreed that the point of greatest
danger was that opposite to the outwork of which the assailants had
possessed themselves. The castle, indeed, was divided from that barbican
by the moat, and it was impossible that the besiegers could assail the
postern-door, with which the outwork corresponded, without surmounting
that obstacle; but it was the opinion both of the Templar and De Bracy,
that the besiegers, if governed by the same policy their leader had
already displayed, would endeavour, by a formidable assault, to draw
the chief part of the defenders' observation to this point, and take
measures to avail themselves of every negligence which might take place
in the defence elsewhere. To guard against such an evil, their numbers
only permitted the knights to place sentinels from space to space along
the walls in communication with each other, who might give the alarm
whenever danger was threatened. Meanwhile, they agreed that De Bracy
should command the defence at the postern, and the Templar should keep
with him a score of men or thereabouts as a body of reserve, ready to
hasten to any other point which might be suddenly threatened. The loss
of the barbican had also this unfortunate effect, that, notwithstanding
the superior height of the castle walls, the besieged could not see from
them, with the same precision as before, the operations of the enemy;
for some straggling underwood approached so near the sallyport of the
outwork, that the assailants might introduce into it whatever force they
thought proper, not only under cover, but even without the knowledge of
the defenders. Utterly uncertain, therefore, upon what point the storm
was to burst, De Bracy and his companion were under the necessity of
providing against every possible contingency, and their followers,
however brave, experienced the anxious dejection of mind incident to men
enclosed by enemies, who possessed the power of choosing their time and
mode of attack.

Meanwhile, the lord of the beleaguered and endangered castle lay upon
a bed of bodily pain and mental agony. He had not the usual resource of
bigots in that superstitious period, most of whom were wont to atone for
the crimes they were guilty of by liberality to the church, stupefying
by this means their terrors by the idea of atonement and forgiveness;
and although the refuge which success thus purchased, was no more like
to the peace of mind which follows on sincere repentance, than the
turbid stupefaction procured by opium resembles healthy and natural
slumbers, it was still a state of mind preferable to the agonies of
awakened remorse. But among the vices of Front-de-Boeuf, a hard and
griping man, avarice was predominant; and he preferred setting church
and churchmen at defiance, to purchasing from them pardon and absolution
at the price of treasure and of manors. Nor did the Templar, an infidel
of another stamp, justly characterise his associate, when he said
Front-de-Boeuf could assign no cause for his unbelief and contempt for
the established faith; for the Baron would have alleged that the Church
sold her wares too dear, that the spiritual freedom which she put up to
sale was only to be bought like that of the chief captain of Jerusalem,
"with a great sum," and Front-de-Boeuf preferred denying the virtue of
the medicine, to paying the expense of the physician.

But the moment had now arrived when earth and all his treasures were
gliding from before his eyes, and when the savage Baron's heart, though
hard as a nether millstone, became appalled as he gazed forward into the
waste darkness of futurity. The fever of his body aided the impatience
and agony of his mind, and his death-bed exhibited a mixture of
the newly awakened feelings of horror, combating with the fixed and
inveterate obstinacy of his disposition;--a fearful state of mind, only
to be equalled in those tremendous regions, where there are complaints
without hope, remorse without repentance, a dreadful sense of present
agony, and a presentiment that it cannot cease or be diminished!

"Where be these dog-priests now," growled the Baron, "who set such price
on their ghostly mummery?--where be all those unshod Carmelites, for
whom old Front-de-Boeuf founded the convent of St Anne, robbing his heir
of many a fair rood of meadow, and many a fat field and close--where be
the greedy hounds now?--Swilling, I warrant me, at the ale, or playing
their juggling tricks at the bedside of some miserly churl.--Me, the
heir of their founder--me, whom their foundation binds them to pray
for--me--ungrateful villains as they are!--they suffer to die like the
houseless dog on yonder common, unshriven and unhouseled!--Tell the
Templar to come hither--he is a priest, and may do something--But
no!--as well confess myself to the devil as to Brian de Bois-Guilbert,
who recks neither of heaven nor of hell.--I have heard old men talk of
prayer--prayer by their own voice--Such need not to court or to bribe
the false priest--But I--I dare not!"

"Lives Reginald Front-de-Boeuf," said a broken and shrill voice close by
his bedside, "to say there is that which he dares not!"

The evil conscience and the shaken nerves of Front-de-Boeuf heard, in
this strange interruption to his soliloquy, the voice of one of those
demons, who, as the superstition of the times believed, beset the
beds of dying men to distract their thoughts, and turn them from the
meditations which concerned their eternal welfare. He shuddered and drew
himself together; but, instantly summoning up his wonted resolution, he
exclaimed, "Who is there?--what art thou, that darest to echo my words
in a tone like that of the night-raven?--Come before my couch that I may
see thee."

"I am thine evil angel, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf," replied the voice.

"Let me behold thee then in thy bodily shape, if thou be'st indeed a
fiend," replied the dying knight; "think not that I will blench from
thee.--By the eternal dungeon, could I but grapple with these horrors
that hover round me, as I have done with mortal dangers, heaven or hell
should never say that I shrunk from the conflict!"

"Think on thy sins, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf," said the almost unearthly
voice, "on rebellion, on rapine, on murder!--Who stirred up the
licentious John to war against his grey-headed father--against his
generous brother?"

"Be thou fiend, priest, or devil," replied Front-de-Boeuf, "thou liest
in thy throat!--Not I stirred John to rebellion--not I alone--there were
fifty knights and barons, the flower of the midland counties--better
men never laid lance in rest--And must I answer for the fault done
by fifty?--False fiend, I defy thee! Depart, and haunt my couch no
more--let me die in peace if thou be mortal--if thou be a demon, thy
time is not yet come."

"In peace thou shalt NOT die," repeated the voice; "even in death
shalt thou think on thy murders--on the groans which this castle has
echoed--on the blood that is engrained in its floors!"

"Thou canst not shake me by thy petty malice," answered Front-de-Boeuf,
with a ghastly and constrained laugh. "The infidel Jew--it was merit
with heaven to deal with him as I did, else wherefore are men canonized
who dip their hands in the blood of Saracens?--The Saxon porkers, whom I
have slain, they were the foes of my country, and of my lineage, and
of my liege lord.--Ho! ho! thou seest there is no crevice in my coat of
plate--Art thou fled?--art thou silenced?"

"No, foul parricide!" replied the voice; "think of thy father!--think
of his death!--think of his banquet-room flooded with his gore, and that
poured forth by the hand of a son!"

"Ha!" answered the Baron, after a long pause, "an thou knowest that,
thou art indeed the author of evil, and as omniscient as the monks call
thee!--That secret I deemed locked in my own breast, and in that of one
besides--the temptress, the partaker of my guilt.--Go, leave me, fiend!
and seek the Saxon witch Ulrica, who alone could tell thee what she
and I alone witnessed.--Go, I say, to her, who washed the wounds, and
straighted the corpse, and gave to the slain man the outward show of
one parted in time and in the course of nature--Go to her, she was my
temptress, the foul provoker, the more foul rewarder, of the deed--let
her, as well as I, taste of the tortures which anticipate hell!"

"She already tastes them," said Ulrica, stepping before the couch of
Front-de-Boeuf; "she hath long drunken of this cup, and its bitterness
is now sweetened to see that thou dost partake it.--Grind not thy teeth,
Front-de-Boeuf--roll not thine eyes--clench not thine hand, nor shake
it at me with that gesture of menace!--The hand which, like that of thy
renowned ancestor who gained thy name, could have broken with one stroke
the skull of a mountain-bull, is now unnerved and powerless as mine
own!"

"Vile murderous hag!" replied Front-de-Boeuf; "detestable screech-owl!
it is then thou who art come to exult over the ruins thou hast assisted
to lay low?"

"Ay, Reginald Front-de-Boeuf," answered she, "it is Ulrica!--it is the
daughter of the murdered Torquil Wolfganger!--it is the sister of his
slaughtered sons!--it is she who demands of thee, and of thy father's
house, father and kindred, name and fame--all that she has lost by the
name of Front-de-Boeuf!--Think of my wrongs, Front-de-Boeuf, and answer
me if I speak not truth. Thou hast been my evil angel, and I will be
thine--I will dog thee till the very instant of dissolution!"

"Detestable fury!" exclaimed Front-de-Boeuf, "that moment shalt thou
never witness--Ho! Giles, Clement, and Eustace! Saint Maur, and Stephen!
seize this damned witch, and hurl her from the battlements headlong--she
has betrayed us to the Saxon!--Ho! Saint Maur! Clement! false-hearted,
knaves, where tarry ye?"

"Call on them again, valiant Baron," said the hag, with a smile of
grisly mockery; "summon thy vassals around thee, doom them that loiter
to the scourge and the dungeon--But know, mighty chief," she continued,
suddenly changing her tone, "thou shalt have neither answer, nor aid,
nor obedience at their hands.--Listen to these horrid sounds," for the
din of the recommenced assault and defence now rung fearfully loud from
the battlements of the castle; "in that war-cry is the downfall of thy
house--The blood-cemented fabric of Front-de-Boeuf's power totters
to the foundation, and before the foes he most despised!--The Saxon,
Reginald!--the scorned Saxon assails thy walls!--Why liest thou here,
like a worn-out hind, when the Saxon storms thy place of strength?"

"Gods and fiends!" exclaimed the wounded knight; "O, for one moment's
strength, to drag myself to the 'melee', and perish as becomes my name!"

"Think not of it, valiant warrior!" replied she; "thou shalt die no
soldier's death, but perish like the fox in his den, when the peasants
have set fire to the cover around it."

"Hateful hag! thou liest!" exclaimed Front-de-Boeuf; "my followers bear
them bravely--my walls are strong and high--my comrades in arms fear
not a whole host of Saxons, were they headed by Hengist and Horsa!--The
war-cry of the Templar and of the Free Companions rises high over the
conflict! And by mine honour, when we kindle the blazing beacon, for joy
of our defence, it shall consume thee, body and bones; and I shall live
to hear thou art gone from earthly fires to those of that hell, which
never sent forth an incarnate fiend more utterly diabolical!"

"Hold thy belief," replied Ulrica, "till the proof reach thee--But, no!"
she said, interrupting herself, "thou shalt know, even now, the doom,
which all thy power, strength, and courage, is unable to avoid,
though it is prepared for thee by this feeble band. Markest thou the
smouldering and suffocating vapour which already eddies in sable folds
through the chamber?--Didst thou think it was but the darkening of
thy bursting eyes--the difficulty of thy cumbered breathing?--No!
Front-de-Boeuf, there is another cause--Rememberest thou the magazine of
fuel that is stored beneath these apartments?"

"Woman!" he exclaimed with fury, "thou hast not set fire to it?--By
heaven, thou hast, and the castle is in flames!"

"They are fast rising at least," said Ulrica, with frightful composure;
"and a signal shall soon wave to warn the besiegers to press hard upon
those who would extinguish them.--Farewell, Front-de-Boeuf!--May Mista,
Skogula, and Zernebock, gods of the ancient Saxons--fiends, as the
priests now call them--supply the place of comforters at your dying bed,
which Ulrica now relinquishes!--But know, if it will give thee comfort
to know it, that Ulrica is bound to the same dark coast with thyself,
the companion of thy punishment as the companion of thy guilt.--And now,
parricide, farewell for ever!--May each stone of this vaulted roof find
a tongue to echo that title into thine ear!"

So saying, she left the apartment; and Front-de-Boeuf could hear the
crash of the ponderous key, as she locked and double-locked the door
behind her, thus cutting off the most slender chance of escape. In the
extremity of agony he shouted upon his servants and allies--"Stephen and
Saint Maur!--Clement and Giles!--I burn here unaided!--To the rescue--to
the rescue, brave Bois-Guilbert, valiant De Bracy!--It is Front-de-Boeuf
who calls!--It is your master, ye traitor squires!--Your ally--your
brother in arms, ye perjured and faithless knights!--all the curses due
to traitors upon your recreant heads, do you abandon me to perish thus
miserably!--They hear me not--they cannot hear me--my voice is lost in
the din of battle.--The smoke rolls thicker and thicker--the fire has
caught upon the floor below--O, for one drought of the air of heaven,
were it to be purchased by instant annihilation!" And in the mad frenzy
of despair, the wretch now shouted with the shouts of the fighters, now
muttered curses on himself, on mankind, and on Heaven itself.--"The red
fire flashes through the thick smoke!" he exclaimed; "the demon marches
against me under the banner of his own element--Foul spirit, avoid!--I
go not with thee without my comrades--all, all are thine, that garrison
these walls--Thinkest thou Front-de-Boeuf will be singled out to go
alone?--No--the infidel Templar--the licentious De Bracy--Ulrica, the
foul murdering strumpet--the men who aided my enterprises--the dog
Saxons and accursed Jews, who are my prisoners--all, all shall attend
me--a goodly fellowship as ever took the downward road--Ha, ha, ha!" and
he laughed in his frenzy till the vaulted roof rang again. "Who laughed
there?" exclaimed Front-de-Boeuf, in altered mood, for the noise of
the conflict did not prevent the echoes of his own mad laughter
from returning upon his ear--"who laughed there?--Ulrica, was it
thou?--Speak, witch, and I forgive thee--for, only thou or the fiend of
hell himself could have laughed at such a moment. Avaunt--avaunt!---"

But it were impious to trace any farther the picture of the blasphemer
and parricide's deathbed.




     Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more,
     Or, close the wall up with our English dead.
     -------And you, good yeomen,
     Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
     The mettle of your pasture--let us swear
     That you are worth your breeding.
     King Henry V

Cedric, although not greatly confident in Ulrica's message, omitted not
to communicate her promise to the Black Knight and Locksley. They were
well pleased to find they had a friend within the place, who might, in
the moment of need, be able to facilitate their entrance, and readily
agreed with the Saxon that a storm, under whatever disadvantages, ought
to be attempted, as the only means of liberating the prisoners now in
the hands of the cruel Front-de-Boeuf.

"The royal blood of Alfred is endangered," said Cedric.

"The honour of a noble lady is in peril," said the Black Knight.

"And, by the Saint Christopher at my baldric," said the good yeoman,
"were there no other cause than the safety of that poor faithful knave,
Wamba, I would jeopard a joint ere a hair of his head were hurt."

"And so would I," said the Friar; "what, sirs! I trust well that a
fool--I mean, d'ye see me, sirs, a fool that is free of his guild and
master of his craft, and can give as much relish and flavour to a cup of
wine as ever a flitch of bacon can--I say, brethren, such a fool shall
never want a wise clerk to pray for or fight for him at a strait, while
I can say a mass or flourish a partisan." And with that he made his
heavy halberd to play around his head as a shepherd boy flourishes his
light crook.

"True, Holy Clerk," said the Black Knight, "true as if Saint Dunstan
himself had said it.--And now, good Locksley, were it not well that
noble Cedric should assume the direction of this assault?"

"Not a jot I," returned Cedric; "I have never been wont to study either
how to take or how to hold out those abodes of tyrannic power, which
the Normans have erected in this groaning land. I will fight among the
foremost; but my honest neighbours well know I am not a trained soldier
in the discipline of wars, or the attack of strongholds."

"Since it stands thus with noble Cedric," said Locksley, "I am most
willing to take on me the direction of the archery; and ye shall hang
me up on my own Trysting-tree, an the defenders be permitted to show
themselves over the walls without being stuck with as many shafts as
there are cloves in a gammon of bacon at Christmas."

"Well said, stout yeoman," answered the Black Knight; "and if I be
thought worthy to have a charge in these matters, and can find among
these brave men as many as are willing to follow a true English knight,
for so I may surely call myself, I am ready, with such skill as my
experience has taught me, to lead them to the attack of these walls."

The parts being thus distributed to the leaders, they commenced the
first assault, of which the reader has already heard the issue.

When the barbican was carried, the Sable Knight sent notice of the
happy event to Locksley, requesting him at the same time, to keep such
a strict observation on the castle as might prevent the defenders from
combining their force for a sudden sally, and recovering the outwork
which they had lost. This the knight was chiefly desirous of avoiding,
conscious that the men whom he led, being hasty and untrained
volunteers, imperfectly armed and unaccustomed to discipline, must, upon
any sudden attack, fight at great disadvantage with the veteran soldiers
of the Norman knights, who were well provided with arms both defensive
and offensive; and who, to match the zeal and high spirit of the
besiegers, had all the confidence which arises from perfect discipline
and the habitual use of weapons.

The knight employed the interval in causing to be constructed a sort of
floating bridge, or long raft, by means of which he hoped to cross the
moat in despite of the resistance of the enemy. This was a work of some
time, which the leaders the less regretted, as it gave Ulrica leisure to
execute her plan of diversion in their favour, whatever that might be.

When the raft was completed, the Black Knight addressed the
besiegers:--"It avails not waiting here longer, my friends; the sun is
descending to the west--and I have that upon my hands which will not
permit me to tarry with you another day. Besides, it will be a marvel if
the horsemen come not upon us from York, unless we speedily accomplish
our purpose. Wherefore, one of ye go to Locksley, and bid him commence a
discharge of arrows on the opposite side of the castle, and move forward
as if about to assault it; and you, true English hearts, stand by me,
and be ready to thrust the raft endlong over the moat whenever the
postern on our side is thrown open. Follow me boldly across, and aid me
to burst yon sallyport in the main wall of the castle. As many of you as
like not this service, or are but ill armed to meet it, do you man the
top of the outwork, draw your bow-strings to your ears, and mind you
quell with your shot whatever shall appear to man the rampart--Noble
Cedric, wilt thou take the direction of those which remain?"

"Not so, by the soul of Hereward!" said the Saxon; "lead I cannot; but
may posterity curse me in my grave, if I follow not with the foremost
wherever thou shalt point the way--The quarrel is mine, and well it
becomes me to be in the van of the battle."

"Yet, bethink thee, noble Saxon," said the knight, "thou hast neither
hauberk, nor corslet, nor aught but that light helmet, target, and
sword."

"The better!" answered Cedric; "I shall be the lighter to climb these
walls. And,--forgive the boast, Sir Knight,--thou shalt this day see
the naked breast of a Saxon as boldly presented to the battle as ever ye
beheld the steel corslet of a Norman."

"In the name of God, then," said the knight, "fling open the door, and
launch the floating bridge."

The portal, which led from the inner-wall of the barbican to the moat,
and which corresponded with a sallyport in the main wall of the castle,
was now suddenly opened; the temporary bridge was then thrust forward,
and soon flashed in the waters, extending its length between the castle
and outwork, and forming a slippery and precarious passage for two men
abreast to cross the moat. Well aware of the importance of taking the
foe by surprise, the Black Knight, closely followed by Cedric, threw
himself upon the bridge, and reached the opposite side. Here he began to
thunder with his axe upon the gate of the castle, protected in part from
the shot and stones cast by the defenders by the ruins of the former
drawbridge, which the Templar had demolished in his retreat from the
barbican, leaving the counterpoise still attached to the upper part of
the portal. The followers of the knight had no such shelter; two were
instantly shot with cross-bow bolts, and two more fell into the moat;
the others retreated back into the barbican.

The situation of Cedric and of the Black Knight was now truly dangerous,
and would have been still more so, but for the constancy of the
archers in the barbican, who ceased not to shower their arrows upon
the battlements, distracting the attention of those by whom they were
manned, and thus affording a respite to their two chiefs from the
storm of missiles which must otherwise have overwhelmed them. But their
situation was eminently perilous, and was becoming more so with every
moment.

"Shame on ye all!" cried De Bracy to the soldiers around him; "do ye
call yourselves cross-bowmen, and let these two dogs keep their station
under the walls of the castle?--Heave over the coping stones from the
battlements, an better may not be--Get pick-axe and levers, and down
with that huge pinnacle!" pointing to a heavy piece of stone carved-work
that projected from the parapet.

At this moment the besiegers caught sight of the red flag upon the angle
of the tower which Ulrica had described to Cedric. The stout yeoman
Locksley was the first who was aware of it, as he was hasting to the
outwork, impatient to see the progress of the assault.

"Saint George!" he cried, "Merry Saint George for England!--To the
charge, bold yeomen!--why leave ye the good knight and noble Cedric to
storm the pass alone?--make in, mad priest, show thou canst fight for
thy rosary,--make in, brave yeomen!--the castle is ours, we have friends
within--See yonder flag, it is the appointed signal--Torquilstone is
ours!--Think of honour, think of spoil--One effort, and the place is
ours!"

With that he bent his good bow, and sent a shaft right through the
breast of one of the men-at-arms, who, under De Bracy's direction, was
loosening a fragment from one of the battlements to precipitate on the
heads of Cedric and the Black Knight. A second soldier caught from the
hands of the dying man the iron crow, with which he heaved at and
had loosened the stone pinnacle, when, receiving an arrow through his
head-piece, he dropped from the battlements into the moat a dead man.
The men-at-arms were daunted, for no armour seemed proof against the
shot of this tremendous archer.

"Do you give ground, base knaves!" said De Bracy; "'Mount joye Saint
Dennis!'--Give me the lever!"

And, snatching it up, he again assailed the loosened pinnacle, which was
of weight enough, if thrown down, not only to have destroyed the remnant
of the drawbridge, which sheltered the two foremost assailants, but also
to have sunk the rude float of planks over which they had crossed. All
saw the danger, and the boldest, even the stout Friar himself, avoided
setting foot on the raft. Thrice did Locksley bend his shaft against De
Bracy, and thrice did his arrow bound back from the knight's armour of
proof.

"Curse on thy Spanish steel-coat!" said Locksley, "had English smith
forged it, these arrows had gone through, an as if it had been silk or
sendal." He then began to call out, "Comrades! friends! noble Cedric!
bear back, and let the ruin fall."

His warning voice was unheard, for the din which the knight himself
occasioned by his strokes upon the postern would have drowned twenty
war-trumpets. The faithful Gurth indeed sprung forward on the planked
bridge, to warn Cedric of his impending fate, or to share it with him.
But his warning would have come too late; the massive pinnacle already
tottered, and De Bracy, who still heaved at his task, would have
accomplished it, had not the voice of the Templar sounded close in his
ears:--

"All is lost, De Bracy, the castle burns."

"Thou art mad to say so!" replied the knight.

"It is all in a light flame on the western side. I have striven in vain
to extinguish it."

With the stern coolness which formed the basis of his character, Brian
de Bois-Guilbert communicated this hideous intelligence, which was not
so calmly received by his astonished comrade.

"Saints of Paradise!" said De Bracy; "what is to be done? I vow to Saint
Nicholas of Limoges a candlestick of pure gold--"

"Spare thy vow," said the Templar, "and mark me. Lead thy men down, as
if to a sally; throw the postern-gate open--There are but two men who
occupy the float, fling them into the moat, and push across for the
barbican. I will charge from the main gate, and attack the barbican on
the outside; and if we can regain that post, be assured we shall defend
ourselves until we are relieved, or at least till they grant us fair
quarter."

"It is well thought upon," said De Bracy; "I will play my part--Templar,
thou wilt not fail me?"

"Hand and glove, I will not!" said Bois-Guilbert. "But haste thee, in
the name of God!"

De Bracy hastily drew his men together, and rushed down to the
postern-gate, which he caused instantly to be thrown open. But scarce
was this done ere the portentous strength of the Black Knight forced his
way inward in despite of De Bracy and his followers. Two of the foremost
instantly fell, and the rest gave way notwithstanding all their leader's
efforts to stop them.

"Dogs!" said De Bracy, "will ye let TWO men win our only pass for
safety?"

"He is the devil!" said a veteran man-at-arms, bearing back from the
blows of their sable antagonist.

"And if he be the devil," replied De Bracy, "would you fly from him into
the mouth of hell?--the castle burns behind us, villains!--let despair
give you courage, or let me forward! I will cope with this champion
myself."

And well and chivalrous did De Bracy that day maintain the fame he had
acquired in the civil wars of that dreadful period. The vaulted passage
to which the postern gave entrance, and in which these two redoubted
champions were now fighting hand to hand, rung with the furious blows
which they dealt each other, De Bracy with his sword, the Black Knight
with his ponderous axe. At length the Norman received a blow, which,
though its force was partly parried by his shield, for otherwise never
more would De Bracy have again moved limb, descended yet with such
violence on his crest, that he measured his length on the paved floor.

"Yield thee, De Bracy," said the Black Champion, stooping over him, and
holding against the bars of his helmet the fatal poniard with which the
knights dispatched their enemies, (and which was called the dagger of
mercy,)--"yield thee, Maurice de Bracy, rescue or no rescue, or thou art
but a dead man."

"I will not yield," replied De Bracy faintly, "to an unknown conqueror.
Tell me thy name, or work thy pleasure on me--it shall never be said
that Maurice de Bracy was prisoner to a nameless churl."

The Black Knight whispered something into the ear of the vanquished.

"I yield me to be true prisoner, rescue or no rescue," answered the
Norman, exchanging his tone of stern and determined obstinacy for one of
deep though sullen submission.

"Go to the barbican," said the victor, in a tone of authority, "and
there wait my further orders."

"Yet first, let me say," said De Bracy, "what it imports thee to know.
Wilfred of Ivanhoe is wounded and a prisoner, and will perish in the
burning castle without present help."

"Wilfred of Ivanhoe!" exclaimed the Black Knight--"prisoner, and
perish!--The life of every man in the castle shall answer it if a hair
of his head be singed--Show me his chamber!"

"Ascend yonder winding stair," said De Bracy; "it leads to his
apartment--Wilt thou not accept my guidance?" he added, in a submissive
voice.

"No. To the barbican, and there wait my orders. I trust thee not, De
Bracy."

During this combat and the brief conversation which ensued, Cedric, at
the head of a body of men, among whom the Friar was conspicuous, had
pushed across the bridge as soon as they saw the postern open, and drove
back the dispirited and despairing followers of De Bracy, of whom some
asked quarter, some offered vain resistance, and the greater part fled
towards the court-yard. De Bracy himself arose from the ground, and cast
a sorrowful glance after his conqueror. "He trusts me not!" he repeated;
"but have I deserved his trust?" He then lifted his sword from the
floor, took off his helmet in token of submission, and, going to the
barbican, gave up his sword to Locksley, whom he met by the way.

As the fire augmented, symptoms of it became soon apparent in the
chamber, where Ivanhoe was watched and tended by the Jewess Rebecca. He
had been awakened from his brief slumber by the noise of the battle; and
his attendant, who had, at his anxious desire, again placed herself at
the window to watch and report to him the fate of the attack, was
for some time prevented from observing either, by the increase of the
smouldering and stifling vapour. At length the volumes of smoke which
rolled into the apartment--the cries for water, which were heard even
above the din of the battle made them sensible of the progress of this
new danger.

"The castle burns," said Rebecca; "it burns!--What can we do to save
ourselves?"

"Fly, Rebecca, and save thine own life," said Ivanhoe, "for no human aid
can avail me."

"I will not fly," answered Rebecca; "we will be saved or perish
together--And yet, great God!--my father, my father--what will be his
fate!"

At this moment the door of the apartment flew open, and the Templar
presented himself,--a ghastly figure, for his gilded armour was broken
and bloody, and the plume was partly shorn away, partly burnt from his
casque. "I have found thee," said he to Rebecca; "thou shalt prove I
will keep my word to share weal and woe with thee--There is but one
path to safety, I have cut my way through fifty dangers to point it to
thee--up, and instantly follow me!" [38]

"Alone," answered Rebecca, "I will not follow thee. If thou wert born of
woman--if thou hast but a touch of human charity in thee--if thy heart
be not hard as thy breastplate--save my aged father--save this wounded
knight!"

"A knight," answered the Templar, with his characteristic calmness, "a
knight, Rebecca, must encounter his fate, whether it meet him in the
shape of sword or flame--and who recks how or where a Jew meets with
his?"

"Savage warrior," said Rebecca, "rather will I perish in the flames than
accept safety from thee!"

"Thou shalt not choose, Rebecca--once didst thou foil me, but never
mortal did so twice."

So saying, he seized on the terrified maiden, who filled the air with
her shrieks, and bore her out of the room in his arms in spite of her
cries, and without regarding the menaces and defiance which Ivanhoe
thundered against him. "Hound of the Temple--stain to thine Order--set
free the damsel! Traitor of Bois-Guilbert, it is Ivanhoe commands
thee!--Villain, I will have thy heart's blood!"

"I had not found thee, Wilfred," said the Black Knight, who at that
instant entered the apartment, "but for thy shouts."

"If thou be'st true knight," said Wilfred, "think not of me--pursue yon
ravisher--save the Lady Rowena--look to the noble Cedric!"

"In their turn," answered he of the Fetterlock, "but thine is first."

And seizing upon Ivanhoe, he bore him off with as much ease as the
Templar had carried off Rebecca, rushed with him to the postern, and
having there delivered his burden to the care of two yeomen, he again
entered the castle to assist in the rescue of the other prisoners.

One turret was now in bright flames, which flashed out furiously from
window and shot-hole. But in other parts, the great thickness of the
walls and the vaulted roofs of the apartments, resisted the progress
of the flames, and there the rage of man still triumphed, as the scarce
more dreadful element held mastery elsewhere; for the besiegers pursued
the defenders of the castle from chamber to chamber, and satiated in
their blood the vengeance which had long animated them against the
soldiers of the tyrant Front-de-Boeuf. Most of the garrison resisted to
the uttermost--few of them asked quarter--none received it. The air was
filled with groans and clashing of arms--the floors were slippery with
the blood of despairing and expiring wretches.

Through this scene of confusion, Cedric rushed in quest of Rowena, while
the faithful Gurth, following him closely through the "melee", neglected
his own safety while he strove to avert the blows that were aimed at
his master. The noble Saxon was so fortunate as to reach his ward's
apartment just as she had abandoned all hope of safety, and, with a
crucifix clasped in agony to her bosom, sat in expectation of instant
death. He committed her to the charge of Gurth, to be conducted in
safety to the barbican, the road to which was now cleared of the enemy,
and not yet interrupted by the flames. This accomplished, the loyal
Cedric hastened in quest of his friend Athelstane, determined, at every
risk to himself, to save that last scion of Saxon royalty. But ere
Cedric penetrated as far as the old hall in which he had himself been
a prisoner, the inventive genius of Wamba had procured liberation for
himself and his companion in adversity.

When the noise of the conflict announced that it was at the hottest, the
Jester began to shout, with the utmost power of his lungs, "Saint George
and the dragon!--Bonny Saint George for merry England!--The castle is
won!" And these sounds he rendered yet more fearful, by banging against
each other two or three pieces of rusty armour which lay scattered
around the hall.

A guard, which had been stationed in the outer, or anteroom, and
whose spirits were already in a state of alarm, took fright at Wamba's
clamour, and, leaving the door open behind them, ran to tell the Templar
that foemen had entered the old hall. Meantime the prisoners found no
difficulty in making their escape into the anteroom, and from thence
into the court of the castle, which was now the last scene of contest.
Here sat the fierce Templar, mounted on horseback, surrounded by several
of the garrison both on horse and foot, who had united their strength
to that of this renowned leader, in order to secure the last chance
of safety and retreat which remained to them. The drawbridge had been
lowered by his orders, but the passage was beset; for the archers, who
had hitherto only annoyed the castle on that side by their missiles, no
sooner saw the flames breaking out, and the bridge lowered, than they
thronged to the entrance, as well to prevent the escape of the garrison,
as to secure their own share of booty ere the castle should be burnt
down. On the other hand, a party of the besiegers who had entered by
the postern were now issuing out into the court-yard, and attacking with
fury the remnant of the defenders who were thus assaulted on both sides
at once.

Animated, however, by despair, and supported by the example of their
indomitable leader, the remaining soldiers of the castle fought with
the utmost valour; and, being well-armed, succeeded more than once in
driving back the assailants, though much inferior in numbers. Rebecca,
placed on horseback before one of the Templar's Saracen slaves, was in
the midst of the little party; and Bois-Guilbert, notwithstanding the
confusion of the bloody fray, showed every attention to her safety.
Repeatedly he was by her side, and, neglecting his own defence, held
before her the fence of his triangular steel-plated shield; and anon
starting from his position by her, he cried his war-cry, dashed forward,
struck to earth the most forward of the assailants, and was on the same
instant once more at her bridle rein.

Athelstane, who, as the reader knows, was slothful, but not cowardly,
beheld the female form whom the Templar protected thus sedulously, and
doubted not that it was Rowena whom the knight was carrying off, in
despite of all resistance which could be offered.

"By the soul of Saint Edward," he said, "I will rescue her from yonder
over-proud knight, and he shall die by my hand!"

"Think what you do!" cried Wamba; "hasty hand catches frog for fish--by
my bauble, yonder is none of my Lady Rowena--see but her long dark
locks!--Nay, an ye will not know black from white, ye may be leader, but
I will be no follower--no bones of mine shall be broken unless I know
for whom.--And you without armour too!--Bethink you, silk bonnet never
kept out steel blade.--Nay, then, if wilful will to water, wilful must
drench.--'Deus vobiscum', most doughty Athelstane!"--he concluded,
loosening the hold which he had hitherto kept upon the Saxon's tunic.

To snatch a mace from the pavement, on which it lay beside one whose
dying grasp had just relinquished it--to rush on the Templar's band, and
to strike in quick succession to the right and left, levelling a warrior
at each blow, was, for Athelstane's great strength, now animated with
unusual fury, but the work of a single moment; he was soon within two
yards of Bois-Guilbert, whom he defied in his loudest tone.

"Turn, false-hearted Templar! let go her whom thou art unworthy to
touch--turn, limb of a hand of murdering and hypocritical robbers!"

"Dog!" said the Templar, grinding his teeth, "I will teach thee to
blaspheme the holy Order of the Temple of Zion;" and with these words,
half-wheeling his steed, he made a demi-courbette towards the Saxon, and
rising in the stirrups, so as to take full advantage of the descent of
the horse, he discharged a fearful blow upon the head of Athelstane.

Well said Wamba, that silken bonnet keeps out no steel blade. So
trenchant was the Templar's weapon, that it shore asunder, as it had
been a willow twig, the tough and plaited handle of the mace, which the
ill-fated Saxon reared to parry the blow, and, descending on his head,
levelled him with the earth.

"'Ha! Beau-seant!'" exclaimed Bois-Guilbert, "thus be it to the
maligners of the Temple-knights!" Taking advantage of the dismay which
was spread by the fall of Athelstane, and calling aloud, "Those who
would save themselves, follow me!" he pushed across the drawbridge,
dispersing the archers who would have intercepted them. He was followed
by his Saracens, and some five or six men-at-arms, who had mounted their
horses. The Templar's retreat was rendered perilous by the numbers of
arrows shot off at him and his party; but this did not prevent him from
galloping round to the barbican, of which, according to his previous
plan, he supposed it possible De Bracy might have been in possession.

"De Bracy! De Bracy!" he shouted, "art thou there?"

"I am here," replied De Bracy, "but I am a prisoner."

"Can I rescue thee?" cried Bois-Guilbert.

"No," replied De Bracy; "I have rendered me, rescue or no rescue. I will
be true prisoner. Save thyself--there are hawks abroad--put the seas
betwixt you and England--I dare not say more."

"Well," answered the Templar, "an thou wilt tarry there, remember I
have redeemed word and glove. Be the hawks where they will, methinks
the walls of the Preceptory of Templestowe will be cover sufficient, and
thither will I, like heron to her haunt."

Having thus spoken, he galloped off with his followers.

Those of the castle who had not gotten to horse, still continued
to fight desperately with the besiegers, after the departure of the
Templar, but rather in despair of quarter than that they entertained any
hope of escape. The fire was spreading rapidly through all parts of the
castle, when Ulrica, who had first kindled it, appeared on a turret, in
the guise of one of the ancient furies, yelling forth a war-song, such
as was of yore raised on the field of battle by the scalds of the
yet heathen Saxons. Her long dishevelled grey hair flew back from her
uncovered head; the inebriating delight of gratified vengeance contended
in her eyes with the fire of insanity; and she brandished the distaff
which she held in her hand, as if she had been one of the Fatal Sisters,
who spin and abridge the thread of human life. Tradition has preserved
some wild strophes of the barbarous hymn which she chanted wildly amid
that scene of fire and of slaughter:--

     1.
     Whet the bright steel,
     Sons of the White Dragon!
     Kindle the torch,
     Daughter of Hengist!
     The steel glimmers not for the carving of the banquet,
     It is hard, broad, and sharply pointed;
     The torch goeth not to the bridal chamber,
     It steams and glitters blue with sulphur.
     Whet the steel, the raven croaks!
     Light the torch, Zernebock is yelling!
     Whet the steel, sons of the Dragon!
     Kindle the torch, daughter of Hengist!

     2.
     The black cloud is low over the thane's castle
     The eagle screams--he rides on its bosom.
     Scream not, grey rider of the sable cloud,
     Thy banquet is prepared!
     The maidens of Valhalla look forth,
     The race of Hengist will send them guests.
     Shake your black tresses, maidens of Valhalla!
     And strike your loud timbrels for joy!
     Many a haughty step bends to your halls,
     Many a helmed head.

     3.
     Dark sits the evening upon the thanes castle,
     The black clouds gather round;
     Soon shall they be red as the blood of the valiant!
     The destroyer of forests shall shake his red crest against
     them.
     He, the bright consumer of palaces,
     Broad waves he his blazing banner,
     Red, wide and dusky,
     Over the strife of the valiant:
     His joy is in the clashing swords and broken bucklers;
     He loves to lick the hissing blood as it bursts warm from the
     wound!

     4.
     All must perish!
     The sword cleaveth the helmet;
     The strong armour is pierced by the lance;
     Fire devoureth the dwelling of princes,
     Engines break down the fences of the battle.
     All must perish!
     The race of Hengist is gone--
     The name of Horsa is no more!
     Shrink not then from your doom, sons of the sword!
     Let your blades drink blood like wine;
     Feast ye in the banquet of slaughter,
     By the light of the blazing halls!
     Strong be your swords while your blood is warm,
     And spare neither for pity nor fear,
     For vengeance hath but an hour;
     Strong hate itself shall expire
     I also must perish! [39]

The towering flames had now surmounted every obstruction, and rose to
the evening skies one huge and burning beacon, seen far and wide through
the adjacent country. Tower after tower crashed down, with blazing roof
and rafter; and the combatants were driven from the court-yard. The
vanquished, of whom very few remained, scattered and escaped into the
neighbouring wood. The victors, assembling in large bands, gazed with
wonder, not unmixed with fear, upon the flames, in which their own ranks
and arms glanced dusky red. The maniac figure of the Saxon Ulrica was
for a long time visible on the lofty stand she had chosen, tossing
her arms abroad with wild exultation, as if she reined empress of the
conflagration which she had raised. At length, with a terrific crash,
the whole turret gave way, and she perished in the flames which had
consumed her tyrant. An awful pause of horror silenced each murmur of
the armed spectators, who, for the space of several minutes, stirred not
a finger, save to sign the cross. The voice of Locksley was then heard,
"Shout, yeomen!--the den of tyrants is no more! Let each bring his
spoil to our chosen place of rendezvous at the Trysting-tree in the
Harthill-walk; for there at break of day will we make just partition
among our own bands, together with our worthy allies in this great deed
of vengeance."

 After the tournament, the gravely wounded Ivanhoe was tended by Isaac and Rebecca; in fact, it was because Rebecca left the cover of her litter, giving it to Ivanhoe, that she caught Brian de Bois-Guilbert's eye. When Ivanhoe weakly regained consciousness, Rebecca promised him that she was a mistress of the healing arts and would restore his health in eight days. When the Saxons met the Jews in the forest before their capture, Rebecca and Isaac said that the litter carried a sick old man. In reality, it carried Ivanhoe, which is how the knight came to be a captive at Torquilstone. In the castle, Rebecca continues to minister to Ivanhoe. As the fighting breaks out in the castle, Rebecca stands at the window and describes the battle to the feeble knight. Rebecca is appalled at the bloodshed and criticizes the institution of knighthood; Ivanhoe defends chivalry as a code of honor and morality. Ivanhoe swoons back into unconsciousness, and Rebecca wraps herself tightly in her veil, attempting to shield herself from her awakening love for Ivanhoe. In the combat, Front-de-Boeuf leads the defenders of the castle against the yeomen of Locksley and the Black Knight. He receives a fatal wound, and as he slumps over in the castle, Ulrica jeers and taunts him, reminding him that he is guilty of his own father's murder. Madly, Ulrica sets fire to the castle, and the flames begin to spread through the hallways. The Black Knight has succeeded in capturing de Bracy; he valiantly charges into the burning castle to rescue Ivanhoe from the flames. The other prisoners manage to escape on their own; however, in the smoke, Rebecca is overtaken by de Bois-Guilbert, who makes off with her. Athelstane attempts to stop the Templar, who deals him a leveling blow on the head. As the mighty ramparts of Torquilstone are engulfed in flames, Ulrica sings an eerie death song. The fire at last swallows Front-de-Bouef, then swallows Ulrica.

