The herald stepped forth, in his quartered tabard and crown of dignity, and the trumpeter by his side blew a summons on his brazen instrument that might have waked the dead. While the sounds were yet ringing in the ears of all, the clear voice of the king-at-arms cried aloud: “Arnold of Falkenhorst, count, banneret, and baron, hear! Thou standest this day before thy peers, accused of heresy and treason; a forsworn and perjured knight; a deserter from thy banner, and a denier of thy God; leagued with the pagan dogs against the holy church; a recreant, a traitor, and a renegado; with arms in thine hands wert thou taken, battling against the cross which thou didst swear to maintain with the best blood of thy veins! Speak! dost thou disavow the deed?”
The lips of Arnold moved, but no words came forth. It seemed as if some swelling convulsion of his throat smothered his utterance. There was a long pause, all expecting that the prisoner would seek to justify his defection, or challenge—as his last resource—the trial by the judgment of God. The rocking motion of his frame increased, and it almost appeared as if he were about to fall upon the earth. The trumpet’s din again broke the silence, and the herald’s voice again made proclamation:
“Arnold of Falkenhorst, speak now, or hear thy doom!—and then for ever hold thy peace!”
No answer was returned to the second summons; and, at the command of Lusignan, the peers and princes of the crusade were called upon for their award. Scarcely had he ceased, before the assembled judges rose to their feet like a single man. In calm determination they laid each one his extended hand upon his breast, and, like the distant mutterings of thunder, was heard the fatal verdict—“Guilty, upon mine honor!”
The words were caught up by the myriads that were collected around, and shouted till the welkin rang: “Guilty, guilty!—To the gibbet with the traitor!”
As soon as the tumult was appeased, Guy de Lusignan arose from his lofty seat, and—the herald making proclamation after him—pronounced the judgment of the court:—
“Arnold of Falkenhorst, whilome count of the empire, belted knight, and sworn soldier of the cross! by thy peers hast thou been tried, and by thy peers art thou condemned! Traitor, recreant, and heretic—discourteous gentleman, false knight, and fallen Christian—hear thy doom! The crest shall be erased from thy burgonet; the spurs shall be hewn from thine heels; the bearings of thy shield shall be defaced; the name of thy house shall be forgotten! To the holy church are thy lands and lordships forfeit! On the gibbet shalt thou die like a dog, and thy body shall be food for the wolf and the vulture!”
“It is the will of God,” shouted the assembled nations, “it is the will of God!”
As soon as the sentence was pronounced—painful, degrading, abhorrent as that sentence was—some portion of the prisoner’s anxiety was relieved; at least, his demeanor was more firm. He raised his eyes, and looked steadily upon the vast crowd which was exulting in his approaching degradation. If there was no composure on his brow, neither was there that appearance of abject depression by which his soul and body had appeared to be alike prostrated. Nay, for an instant his eye flashed and his lip curled, as he tore the collar of knighthood and the shield from his neck, and cast them at the feet of the herald, who was approaching to fulfil the decree. “I had discarded them before,” he said, “nor does it grieve me now to behold them thus.” Yet, notwithstanding the vaunt, his proud spirit was stung—stung more deeply by the sense of degradation than by the fear of death. The spurs which had so often goaded his charger to glory, amid the acclamations and admiration of thousands, were hacked from his heels by the sordid cleaver; the falcon-crest, which had once been a rallying-point and a beacon amid the dust and confusion of the fight, was shorn from his casque; the quarterings of many a noble family were erased from his proud escutcheon, and the shield itself reversed and hung aloft upon the ignominious tree. The pride which had burst into a momentary blaze of indignation, had already ceased to act upon his flagging spirits; and, when a confessor was tendered to him, and he was even offered the privilege of readmission within the pale of the church, he trembled.
“The crime—if crime there be—is his,” he said, pointing toward Guy de Lusignan. “I had served him, and served the cross, as never man did, had he not spurned me with injury, and disgraced me before his court, when I sought the hand of her whom I had rescued by my lance from paynim slavery. Had I been the meanest soldier in the Christian army, my deeds had won me a title to respect, at least, if not to favor. De Lusignan and his haughty daughter drove me forth to seek those rights and that honor from the gratitude of the infidel which were denied by my brothers-in-arms. If I am a sinner, he made me what I am; and now he slays me for it! I say not, ‘Let him give me the hand which he then denied me;’ but let him spare my life, and I am again a Christian; my sword shall again shine in the van of his array; the plots, the stratagems, the secrets of the moslem, shall be his. I, even I, the scorned and condemned renegado, can do more to replace De Lusignan on the throne of Jerusalem than the lances of ten thousand crusaders—ay, than the boasted prowess of Cœur de Lion, or the myriads of France and Austria! All this will I do for him—all this, and more—if he but grants me life. I cannot—I dare not die!—What said I?—I a Falkenhorst, and dare not!”