The assassin lay upon the floor in the agonies of death, his head broken by the oaken tressel from which she had just risen. Prostrate by his side lay the prince, in a state of insensibility, the blood faintly oozing from a wound in his arm. The princess comprehended at once the risk her husband had incurred, and shuddered with apprehension at the thought of the danger that yet might menace him; and while the attendants lifted him from the floor, she tenderly raised his arm to her lips, and began to draw the venom from the wound. But no sooner did Edward revive from his swoon, than, forcibly thrusting her aside, he exclaimed, “Eleanora my life, knowest thou not the dagger was poisoned?”
“Even so, my lord,” said she, with steadfast composure, still firmly persisting in her purpose, notwithstanding his constant remonstrance.
The fearful intelligence of their leader’s peril spread with lightning speed through the city, and self-sent messengers hurried in every direction, and summoned leeches and priests to cure or shrive the dying monarch. The Grand Master of the Temple, who was somewhat practised in the habits of the assassins, appeared in the midst of the exciting scene, and commending the timely application of Eleanora’s loving lips, bound up the wound with a soft emollient, and prescribed for the princess an antidote of sovereign efficacy.
Scarcely had silence resumed her dominion in the palace, when the porter was again aroused to admit de Courtenay and his rescued Eva. The traitor D’Essai had been lodged in the tower of Maledictum, to wait Edward’s pleasure concerning him; and Eva, her heart overflowing with rapture in the assurance of Sir Henry’s restored confidence, and the security of a father’s love, passed the livelong night with Eleanora, in that free communion of soul which generous natures experience when the gushings of a common emotion overleap the barriers of conventionalism and formality.
Edward was himself again. The steady ray of reason had subdued the fevered gleam of his eye, and the ruddy hue of health replaced the pallor of wasting sickness upon his cheek. His athletic frame had wrestled with disease, and come off conqueror over weakness and pain; and as he assumed his seat of judgment, clad in his warlike panoply, the royal Plantagenet “looked every inch a king.” The great church of Acre was thrown open, and knights in brilliant armor, and Templars and Hospitallers in the habiliments of their orders, bishops and priests in their sacred robes, and vassals in their holiday array, crowded up the long aisles, and filled the spacious choir, as though eager to witness some splendid ceremonial. But instead of gorgeous decorations, wainscot and window draped with black diffused a funereal gloom, and the solemn reverberation of the tolling bell seemed to sound a requiem over the grave of Hope.
Sir Francis d’Essai had been tried in a council of his peers, and found guilty of treason to religion and knightly devoir; and this day, the anniversary of his admission to the rank of knighthood, his companions in arms, the vassals whom he despised, and all those actuated by curiosity or enmity, were assembled to witness his degradation. Eva shuddered at the terrible doom of her former lover, and de Courtenay, with instinctive delicacy, had obtained permission to absent himself from the scene on a visit to the Holy Sepulchre. As king-of-arms, and first in rank, it was the duty of Edward to preside over this fearful ceremony, which, by the true and loyal, was regarded as more terrible than death itself.
At the first stroke of the great bell, the pursuivants, having robed Sir Francis for the last time in his knightly habiliments, conducted him from the Cursed Tower toward the church. As they entered the door, the doleful peal sank in silence, and, after one awful moment, his fellow-knights, with broken voices, began to chant the burial service.
An elevated stage, hung with black, had been erected in the centre of the nave, and upon this the pursuivants, whose business it was to divest him of every outward insignia of courage and truth, placed the culprit, in full view of all the vast concourse.
When the chanting ceased, Prince Edward spoke in a voice that thrilled to every heart, “Sir Francis d’Essai! thou who didst receive the sword of knighthood from the hand of the good St. Louis, dost stand before us this day attaint of treason to thy God, thy truth, and the lady of thy love. Wherefore thy peers have willed that the order of knighthood, by the which thou hast received all the honor and worship upon thy body, be brought to nought, and thy state be undone, and thou be driven forth outcast and dishonored according to thy base deserts.” Instantly the brazen tongue from the belfry ratified the fiat, and announced the hour of doom. At the word, the squire with trembling hand removed the helmet, the defence of disloyal eyes, revealing the pale and haggard countenance of the recreant knight, and the choir resumed the mournful dirge. Then each pursuivant advanced in his order to the performance of his unwelcome duty. One by one the knightly trappings of D’Essai were torn from his body, and as cuirass, greaves, brassarts, and gauntlets rang upon the pavements, the heralds exclaimed, “Behold the harness of a miscreant!”