"Know, then," said the Priest of St. Paul's, "that Agnes, daughter of the murdered Albert, after shedding oceans of blood in avenging his bloody death, founded at length the rich abbey of Königsfeldt; and, that it might have a superior claim to renowned sanctity, made a pilgrimage in person to the cell of the holy hermit, and besought of him to honour her abbey by taking up his residence there. But what was his reply?--Mark it and tremble. 'Begone, ruthless woman,' said the holy man; 'God will not be served with blood-guiltiness, and rejects the gifts which are obtained by violence and robbery. The Almighty loves mercy, justice, and humanity, and by the lovers of these only will He be worshipped.' And now, Archibald of Hagenbach, once, twice, thrice, hast thou had warning. Live as becomes a man on whom sentence is passed, and who must expect execution." Having spoken these words with a menacing tone and frowning aspect, the Priest of St. Paul's turned away from the Governor, whose first impulse was to command him to be arrested. But when he recollected the serious consequences which attached to the laying violent hands on a priest, he suffered him to depart in peace, conscious that his own unpopularity might render any attempt to revenge himself an act of great rashness. He called, therefore, for a beaker of Burgundy, in which he swallowed down his displeasure, and had just returned to Kilian the cup, which he had drained to the bottom, when the warden winded a blast from the watch-tower, which betokened the arrival of strangers at the gate of the city. CHAPTER XIV. I will resist such entertainment, till My enemy has more power. _The Tempest._ "That blast was but feebly blown," said De Hagenbach, ascending to the ramparts, from which he could see what passed on the outside of the gate. "Who approaches, Kilian?" The trusty squire was hastening to meet him with the news. "Two men with a mule, an it please your excellency; and merchants, I presume them to be." "Merchants? 'Sdeath, villain! pedlars you mean. Heard ever man of English merchants tramping it on foot, with no more baggage than one mule can manage to carry? They must be beggarly Bohemians, or those whom the French people call Escossais. The knaves! they shall pay with the pining of their paunches for the poverty of their purses." "Do not be too hasty, an please your excellency," quoth the squire; "small budgets hold rich goods. But, rich or poor, they are our men, at least they have all the marks--the elder, well-sized and dark-visaged, may write fifty and five years, a beard somewhat grizzled;--the younger, some two-and-twenty, taller than the first, and a well-favoured lad, with a smooth chin and light-brown mustaches." "Let them be admitted," said the Governor, turning back in order again to descend to the street, "and bring them into the folter-kammer of the toll-house."