“I am Robert,” he cried haughtily, and looking with defiance at the knights.
“The fiend!” cried the minstrel, falling on his knees.
“An hour for thy prayers, and the hour following thy purgatory! The next tree shall bear thee as its fruit.”
“Good, my prince; verily we have come all the way to see thee, bearing a holy message.”
“Message—we—who is your companion?”
“She who shall be my wife, if thou wilt let me live, master.”
“A Normandienne, Bertram; a Normandienne. Are there any women, think’st thou, their equals? Well, minstrel, thy wife’s eyes have gained for thee a pardon. Send her hither.”
“Good master.”
“Thou art courageous!”
Some well-meaning man-at-arms here gruffly pulled the young minstrel away; and the last he saw of Robert was that he turned inquiringly to the knights, and that they all seemed eager to please him and be near him.