“Look ye, son of Moses,” cried one of the yeomen, advancing toward the Jew, “why stands this man of thine so silent and still? He moves not, nor does he speak; but his wild eye is glancing hither and thither like a fire-coal. Why does he stand thus mute and speechless?”
A grim smile passed over the bearded features of the Jew.
“Ask a post why it does not speak, or ask a war-horse to troll ye a merry song! You are a keen yeoman and a shrewd, yet did it ne’er strike ye that my servitor might be incapable of speech? A poor Arab boy, gentle sirs and damsels, whose dying father gave him to my care, when perishing on the field of battle, in the wilds of Palestine, some twenty years agone.”
“A son of the paynim Mahound,” muttered the yeoman, with a look of scorn.
“Nay he is of the faith of Christ,” interrupted the Jew. “Behold, he wears the cross of Rome!”
“A sweet youth, and gentle-faced, though somewhat sad in look,” murmured a peasant matron, gazing with a look of pity upon the tawny face of the Arab mute.
And while the group of peasant men and women clustered around the Jew and his Arab boy, a cry ran through the castle yard, echoed from lip to lip, and repeated by the crowd thronging the place, until the air seemed alive with the shout: “She comes, she comes! The fair Ladye Annabel is passing to the chapel of St. George! Make way for the betrothed! Make way for the Ladye Annabel! Make way for the Duchess of Florence!”
In a moment the court-yard was occupied by two files of men-at-arms, who extended from the great steps, ascending to the massive door of the castle hall, along the level space, making a lane for the passage of the Ladye Annabel and her train. The crowd came thronging to the backs of the warriors, gathering around the staircase, and blackening on every side, eager to behold the betrothed of his grace the Duke of Florence.
Foremost among the throng at the bottom of the stairway, his pack lashed to his back, and a small casket in his hands, the black-bearded Jew appeared to take great interest in the scene progressing before his eyes.
The Arab mute stood at his back, half concealed from view, and unseen or unnoticed by the survitors and vassals of Albarone.