“Will future ages believe that such stupid bigotry ever existed!” said Bois-Guilbert, striding up and down the apartment.
“What they may believe, I know not,” said Malvoisin, calmly; “but I know well, that in this our day, clergy and laymen, take ninety-nine to the hundred, will cry ‘amen’ to the Grand Master’s sentence.”
“I have it,” said Bois-Guilbert. “Albert, thou art my friend. Thou must connive at her escape, Malvoisin, and I will transport her to some place of greater security and secrecy.”
“I cannot, if I would,” replied the Preceptor; “the mansion is filled with the attendants of the Grand Master, and others who are devoted to him. And, to be frank with you, brother, I would not embark with you in this matter, even if I could hope to bring my bark to haven. I have risked enough already for your sake. I have no mind to encounter a sentence of degradation, or even to lose my Preceptory, for the sake of a painted piece of Jewish flesh and blood. And you, if you will be guided by my counsel, will give up this wild-goose chase, and fly your hawk at some other game. Think, Bois-Guilbert,—thy present rank, thy future honours, all depend on thy place in the Order. Shouldst thou adhere perversely to thy passion for this Rebecca, thou wilt give Beaumanoir the power of expelling thee, and he will not neglect it. He is jealous of the truncheon which he holds in his trembling gripe, and he knows thou stretchest thy bold hand towards it. Doubt not he will ruin thee, if thou affordest him a pretext so fair as thy protection of a Jewish sorceress. Give him his scope in this matter, for thou canst not control him. When the staff is in thine own firm grasp, thou mayest caress the daughters of Judah, or burn them, as may best suit thine own humour.”
“Malvoisin,” said Bois-Guilbert, “thou art a cold-blooded—”
“Friend,” said the Preceptor, hastening to fill up the blank, in which Bois-Guilbert would probably have placed a worse word,—“a cold-blooded friend I am, and therefore more fit to give thee advice. I tell thee once more, that thou canst not save Rebecca. I tell thee once more, thou canst but perish with her. Go hie thee to the Grand Master—throw thyself at his feet and tell him—”
“Not at his feet, by Heaven! but to the dotard’s very beard will I say—”
“Say to him, then, to his beard,” continued Malvoisin, coolly, “that you love this captive Jewess to distraction; and the more thou dost enlarge on thy passion, the greater will be his haste to end it by the death of the fair enchantress; while thou, taken in flagrant delict by the avowal of a crime contrary to thine oath, canst hope no aid of thy brethren, and must exchange all thy brilliant visions of ambition and power, to lift perhaps a mercenary spear in some of the petty quarrels between Flanders and Burgundy.”
“Thou speakest the truth, Malvoisin,” said Brian de Bois-Guilbert, after a moment’s reflection. “I will give the hoary bigot no advantage over me; and for Rebecca, she hath not merited at my hand that I should expose rank and honour for her sake. I will cast her off—yes, I will leave her to her fate, unless—”
“Qualify not thy wise and necessary resolution,” said Malvoisin; “women are but the toys which amuse our lighter hours—ambition is the serious business of life. Perish a thousand such frail baubles as this Jewess, before thy manly step pause in the brilliant career that lies stretched before thee! For the present we part, nor must we be seen to hold close conversation—I must order the hall for his judgment-seat.”