“Chains left unlocked, and captives have escaped,” answered the Marquis. “It is an ancient saying, no sure dungeon but the grave.”
“When loose, he resumes his quest,” continued the military priest; “for it is the nature of this sort of blood hound never to quit the suit of the prey he has once scented.”
“Say no more of it,” said the Marquis; “I see thy policy—it is dreadful, but the emergency is imminent.”
“I only told thee of it,” said the Templar, “that thou mayest keep thyself on thy guard; for the uproar will be dreadful, and there is no knowing on whom the English may vent their rage. Ay, and there is another risk. My page knows the counsels of this Charegite,” he continued; “and, moreover, he is a peevish, self-willed fool, whom I would I were rid of, as he thwarts me by presuming to see with his own eyes, not mine. But our holy order gives me power to put a remedy to such inconvenience. Or stay—the Saracen may find a good dagger in his cell, and I warrant you he uses it as he breaks forth, which will be of a surety so soon as the page enters with his food.”
“It will give the affair a colour,” said Conrade; “and yet—”
“YET and BUT,” said the Templar, “are words for fools; wise men neither hesitate nor retract—they resolve and they execute.”
CHAPTER XX.
When beauty leads the lion in her toils,
Such are her charms, he dare not raise his mane,
Far less expand the terror of his fangs.
So great Alcides made his club a distaff,
And spun to please fair Omphale.
ANONYMOUS.
Richard, the unsuspicious object of the dark treachery detailed in the closing part of the last chapter, having effected, for the present at least, the triumphant union of the Crusading princes in a resolution to prosecute the war with vigour, had it next at heart to establish tranquillity in his own family; and, now that he could judge more temperately, to inquire distinctly into the circumstances leading to the loss of his banner, and the nature and the extent of the connection betwixt his kinswoman Edith and the banished adventurer from Scotland.