“Maiden,” said he, looking earnestly into her face, “you are fighting against fate, and against a destiny you can no more avoid than you can the death which comes to all flesh. You struggle in vain. It is not my wont to be baffled, as the world well knows, and will yet know better. Loath am I to use force, but, since you make it necessary, I needs must. Below are twenty men, who, if I said the word, would bring me the head of the pope or the caliph. One sound of this, and they come to my aid;” and he pointed to a silver whistle that hung at his belt. De Moreville’s daughter, retreating behind Dame Waledger, gazed with alarm at the citizen, but did not venture to speak. It seemed that her stock of courage was exhausted. Fitzarnulph appeared to hesitate. After a moment’s pause, however, he took the whistle and sounded it loudly. As he did so, voices were heard as if in altercation below; steps as of persons ascending, and the ring of steel on the stone stairs, succeeded; and then there entered, not the twenty desperadoes, but Oliver Icingla, with his spurs of gold on his heels and his trusty sword in his hand, just as he had jumped from his good steed Ayoub. De Moreville’s daughter uttered an exclamation of rapturous surprise, and darted forward to throw herself on the young knight’s protection. Fitzarnulph stood as much like an image of stone as if the heir of the Icinglas had brought the Gorgon’s head in his hand. CHAPTER LXI AN OFFERING TO THE WINDS The sudden appearance of Oliver Icingla changed the aspect of affairs so completely that Constantine Fitzarnulph could not but curse the folly which had placed him in a position so thoroughly perplexing as that in which he found himself. He would have felt relieved if Oliver had burst into one of the brief but violent rages in which, like most men of Anglo-Saxon race, the Icingla frequently indulged. But Oliver was perfectly calm, treated Fitzarnulph as a madman not responsible for his actions, and with cool contempt showed the citizen the door, and expressed a hope that his kinsfolk would take better care of him in future.