“Behold Jocelyn’s hermitage,” he said to them. “Columbe my sister lies buried under yonder cedar.”
Blanche, weary despite the strength of her strenuous soul, strove to calm for the moment the passion of a man who had lived as in a furnace those many months.
“Tristan,” she answered him, with a hand on his bridle, “is it not enough that you have conquered? Shall not your sister rest in peace?”
The expression of the man’s face changed again as suddenly as the surface of a darkened mirror. The old fanatical and sullen gloom rushed back.
“What is victory,” he said, “but the power to punish, to crush the adder under the heel. My sister shall rest in no hidden grave. By my soul, I have sworn it; in Agravale I will build her tomb.”
There could be no debate with such a man as this, whose spirit flamed like a torch in a wind. Tristan dismounted on the brow of the hill, bade them bring forward the wooden coffin that had carried Jocelyn from the town of Marvail. The blazoned banner covered the shell. Tristan, with his own hands, flung the “Golden Keys” aside, ungirded the lid, bade his men lift the Bishop out.
Jocelyn stood there, a lean, cringing figure, with the pride gone from his hollow-cheeked face. His eyes roved over the blackened country, the sepulchral trees, the brown, scorched grass. He seemed dizzy in the sun, looking more like some starved ascetic than the plump prelate who had ruled Agravale. Tristan ordered wine to be brought, and Jocelyn drank greedily from the flask, his head shaking as with an old man’s palsy. The red wine ran down his chin, stained his tunic, soaked the dead grass at his feet.
Tristan stood above him with drawn sword.
“Seest thou yonder island?” he said.
Jocelyn followed with his eyes the pointing sword.