"Who is your mistress?" insisted the Margrave. "And who are you?"
"Release the wanton! How dare you, a soldier of the church, break the commands of the Apostolic lieutenant?" exclaimed a husky voice and a strong arm grasped Eckhardt's shoulder. Turning round, the latter saw himself confronted by the towering form of the monk Nilus, who seemed ignorant of the person and rank of him he was addressing and whose countenance flamed with fanatic wrath.
"Ay! And it hath come to my turn to rescue damsels, and moreover to serve the church," added another speaker in a bantering tone and Eckhardt instantly recognized the Lord Vitelozzo, who having eluded the pursuit of the monk of Cluny, held a mace he had secured in lieu of his cross-bow high and menacingly in the air.
"Friar, look to your ally, if such he be, lest I do what I should have done before and make a very harmless rogue of him," said Eckhardt, holding the girl with one hand while with the other he unsheathed his sword.
"Peace, fool!" the monk addressed his would-be ally, drawing him back forcibly. "The church needs not the aid of one rogue to subdue another. Let the girl go, my son!" he then turned to the Margrave.
"Nay, father—by these bruises, which still ache, I will retrieve my wrong and rescue the wench," insisted the Roman, again raising his massive weapon, but the monk and some bystanders wedged themselves between Eckhardt and his opponent.
"Nay, then, now we are like to have good sport," exclaimed a fourth. "A monk, a woman and a soldier,—it requires not more to set the world ablaze."
"Stranger,—I implore you, release me," whispered Eckhardt's captive with frantic entreaty amidst the ever increasing tumult of the bystanders, who appeared to be divided, some favouring the monk, while others sided with the girl's captor, whose intentions they sorely misconstrued. "I would not stand revealed to yonder monk for all the world!" concluded the girl in fear-struck tones.
At this moment a cry among the bystanders warned Eckhardt that Vitelozzo's wrath had at length mastered every effort to restrain him, and, whirling round, to defend himself he was compelled to release the girl. But instead of making the use she might have been expected to do of her liberty, she called to the monk, to part the combatants in the name of the saints.
But it required no expostulation on the part of the friar, for when Eckhardt turned fully upon him, Vitelozzo, for the first time recognizing his antagonist, beat a precipitate retreat, but at some distance he turned, shouting derisively: