"Pure as the lilies in the courts of God. Every fragment of you is like to me as a pearl from the lips of angels; your flesh is of silver, your bosom as snow from Lebanon, girded with the gold of truth. Oh, second Adam, thanks be to thee for thy philosophy." She put out her hands and touched his hair; their eyes were like sea and sky in summer, tranquil, tender, and unshadowed. "I love you for this purity, ah, more and more than I can tell." "True love is ever pure." "And for me, such love as yours. Never to see the wolfish stare, the flushed forehead, and the loosened lip; never to feel the burning breath. God indeed be thanked for this." "Have no fear of me." "Ah, like a white gull into a blue sky, like water into a crystal bowl, I give myself into your arms." XXXVI A week had passed, and the Gambrevault trumpets blew the last rally; her drums rumbled on the battlements of the keep where the women and children had been gathered, a dumb, panic-ridden flock, huddled together like sheep in a pen. The great banner flapped above their heads with a solemn and sinuous benediction. The sun was spreading on the sea a golden track towards the west, and the shouts of the besiegers rose from the courts. On the stairs and in the banqueting hall the last remnant of the garrison had gathered, half-starved men, silent and grim as death, game to the last finger. They handled their swords and waited, moving restlessly to and fro like caged leopards. They knew what was to come, and hungered to have it over and done with. It was the waiting that made them curse in undertones. A few were at prayer on the stone steps. Father Julian stood with his crucifix at the top of the stairway, and began to chant the "Miserere"; some few voices followed him. In the inner court Colgran’s men surged in their hundreds like an impatient sea. They had trampled down the garden, overthrown the urns and statues, pulped the flowers under their feet. On the outer walls archers marked every window of the keep. In the inner court cannoneers were training the gaping muzzle of a bombard against the gate. A sullen and perpetual clamour sounded round the grey walls, like the roar of breakers about a headland. Flavian stood on the dais of the banqueting hall and listened to the voices of the mob without. Yeoland, in the harness Fulviac had given her, held at his side. The man’s beaver was up, and he looked pale, but calm and resolute as a Greek god. That morning his own armour, blazoned with the Gambrevault arms, had disappeared from his bed-side, a suit of plain black harness left in its stead. No amount of interrogation, no command, had been able to wring a word from his knights or esquires. So he wore the black armour now perforce, and prepared to fight his last fight like a gentleman and a Christian.