Not long after the death of Sir Nicholas, a palmer arrived at the castle who had more to tell than usual, but not of a reassuring character—he had been at Saint Jean d’Acre.
Here the voice of the Lady Sybil was heard, and there was instant silence.
“How long ago was it that he had left Acre?”
“It might be six months.”
“Had he heard of a young English knight, for whom all their hearts were very sore: Sir Hubert of Walderne?”
“No, and yet if the knight had arrived at Acre he must have heard of it, for all travellers sought the hospitality of the brethren of Saint John, with whom he lived for six months as a serving brother, waiting upon their guests.”
Dead silence. After a while the lady spoke.
“And had he not heard of the arrival of a vessel from Marseilles, called the Fleur de Lys?”
“Lady,” he replied, “the name brings a sad remembrance of my voyage homeward to my mind. Off the coast of Sicily is a mighty whirlpool, which men call Charybdis, where Aeneas of old narrowly escaped shipwreck. When the tide goes down the whirlpool belches forth the fragments of ships which have been sucked down, and when it returns the abyss again absorbs them.
“Here, then, I stood one day, for we had landed at Syracuse, on the rocks which commanded the swelling main, and at high tide I saw the hideous wreckage flow forth from the dark prison. One portion, a figurehead, came near me in its gyrations. It was the carved figure of the Fleur de Lys.”