Trembling and bent beneath the weight of shame, the craven stood, while they smote the golden spurs from his heels, and brake his dishonored sword above his head, and the terrible requiem wailed over the perished emblems of his former innocence.
The Grand Master of the Templars then entered upon the stage, bearing a silver basin filled with tepid water, and the herald, holding it up, exclaimed, “By what name call men the knight before us?”
The pursuivants answered, “The name which was given him in baptism,—the name by which his father was known,—the name confirmed to him in chivalry is Sir Francis d’Essai.”
The heralds again replied, “Falsehood sits upon his tongue and rules in his heart; he is miscreant, traitor, and Infidel.”
Immediately the Grand Master, in imitation of baptism, dashed the water in his face, saying, “Henceforth be thou called by thy right name, Traitor!”
Then the heralds rang out a shrill note upon the trumpets, expressive of the demand, “What shall be done with the false-hearted knave?” Prince Edward in his majesty arose, and in a voice agitated with a sense of the awful penalty, replied, “Let him with dishonor and shame be banished from the kingdom of Christ—Let his brethren curse him, and let not the angels of God intercede for him.”
Immediately each knight drew his sword, and presenting its gleaming point against the now defenceless D’Essai, crowded him down the steps to the altar, where the pursuivants seized him, and forced him into his coffin, and placed him on the bier, and the attendant priests completed the burial-service over his polluted name and perjured soul. At a sign from the king, the bearers took up the bier, and all the vast congregation followed in sad procession, to the city-gates, where they thrust him out, a thing accursed, while the great bell from the lofty tower of the cathedral told the tale of his infamy in tones of terrible significance, “Gone—gone—gone—virtue, faith, and truth; lost—lost—lost—honor, fame, and love.” From Carmel’s hoary height to Tabor’s sacred top, each hallowed hill and vale reverberated the awful knell, “Gone and lost—lost and gone”—and the breeze that swept the plain of Esdraelon caught up the dismal echo, and seemed hurrying across the Mediterranean to whisper to the chivalry of Europe the dreadful story of his degradation.
Stung by the weight of woe that had fallen upon him, the miserable D’Essai rose and gazed across the plain. An arid waste spread out before him like the prospect of his own dreary future, blackened and desolate by the reign of evil passions.
Life, what had it been to him? A feverish dream, a burning thirst, a restless, unsatisfied desire! Virtue—honor—truth—idle words, their solemn mockery yet rang in his ears. He ran—he flew—anywhere, anywhere to flee the haunting thoughts that trooped like fiends upon his track.
He neared the banks of the river, its cooling waters rolling on in their eternal channel, promised to allay his fever and bury his dishonored name in oblivion. He plunged in—that ancient river swept him away, the river Kishon, and as he sank to rise no more, a deep voice exclaimed, “So perish thine enemies, O Lord!” It was the voice of Dermot de la Clare, who, passing southward at the head of his troop, from the opposite bank became an involuntary witness of the frantic suicide.