“Then remember Noah’s covenant of peace. On our banners often we have our spirit expressed by a dove flying toward a tempest-tossed ark; in the messenger’s beak an olive branch; around the whole the bow of promise.”
“Well what of all this?”
“The ark is the world; the rest is plain.”
“Oh, a charming theory,” sarcastically responded Harrimai.
“I wear it next my heart;” so saying the knight threw aside his cloak and drew from around his body a banner he had hitherto concealed. “See here, ‘chastity,’ ‘temperance,’ ‘courtesy.’ Our mottoes in peace or war! Women, children and pilgrims, in a word the needy the world around, are the wards of all true Christian knights!”
“Mottoes! words! Oh, yes, words! But then the Crusaders have used swords! Their words I’ll meet with words to their confounding, nor while I live will I forget their cruel weapons.” So saying the priest swept out of the sick chamber in manifest rage.
He returned in a moment, and with the self-command of wrath, conscious of power, said: “Thou wouldst make all men akin! Thou and thine are dreamers, the world thinks; to-day it laughs to scorn this bootless pursuit of a chimera. Leave us forthwith and in the peace that thou foundst here. When the kinship is reality, thou mayst come to us for further talk; ’till then remember thou art a Christian, I a Jew!”
“Thou art religious! Heavens! what a tender shepherd.”
Harrimai was very much angered, but he retorted with self-control; “Oh, yes, and the God of all hath seven garments. In creation, honor and glory; in providence, majesty; as lawgiver, might and whiteness; of spotless light when he appears as a Saviour. He is clad with zeal when he punishes, and with blood red when He revenges. I would be like Him. By the glory of God! thou follower of Nazereth’s Impostor, sooner than suffer thy blood to contaminate my family lines, I’d hew thee to pieces as Agag was hewn! Rizpah, thou knowest me; wed him and thou’lt be widowed, though carrying the unborn; though widow-hood broke thy heart. I’d rather a thousand times see thee lying dead by thy true Jewish mother than——.” The priest, in a tumult of fanatical passion mingled with the grief of offended pride, lacked for words to express the climax of his feelings; so covering his tearless eyes, as one weeping, he rushed out from those he had assailed. He persuaded himself that he had spoken all for the glory of God; the lovers thought of their solemn betrothal and their love which they were certain was as fine as any earth ever knew, and they felt that they were martyrs. Both sides appealed to God and in a spirit very ungodly, but very human, braced themselves for opposing war.