'May your dream be realised ere we depart from this holy land, good Walter!' said Guy, with sympathy.
'Amen,' added Bisset, earnestly. 'More unlikely things have come to pass.'
And, in truth, such a result was not altogether impossible; for at that moment Walter Espec and Osbert Espec were both within the walls of Acre. But Walter was preparing to embark for Europe; and Osbert was on the eve of setting out for the castle of Kakhow, not to return for many days. But the stars had decreed that they were to meet.
CHAPTER XLI.
A SUDDEN DISCOVERY.
IT was evening, and shadows were closing over Acre. But the scene thus presented was fair to behold. The sky was richly coloured, the setting sun painted the landscape in brilliant hues, the wind sighed among the palms and lofty sycamores, and the waves of the Mediterranean murmured against the white walls and on the Syrian shore.
Walter Espec sat in the lodgings of Bisset, hard by the palace occupied by the King of France, and he was alone. Bisset had been summoned to attend the king; Guy Muschamp had gone to visit his kinsman, the Lord of Joinville; and Walter, left with his own thoughts, was reclining on a couch, and resting his head against a window, with his eyes fixed on the citizens who passed before him, on their way to breathe the air in the gardens outside the walls, when he was aroused by the tramp of cavalry, and the approach of a body of warriors, whose white mantles over their armour, and whole appearance, indicated that they were military monks. Walter's curiosity was aroused, and he shouted to make inquiries of a portly citizen who was passing at the moment, and who, as Walter knew, as a confirmed gossip.
'Good citizen,' said he, 'these are warrior monks, and yet they neither wear the habit of the Templars nor the Hospitallers. Canst tell me what knights they be who come along so proudly?'