Another yet more reckless lifted voice. “Is a jongleur to be a heathen and we can’t? Is he to give the dare to a Free Companion?” Despite the giant and those backing him, the pack came nearer, narrowing the black mark. Garin spoke. He was accustomed to lead and command men, fusing their will with his. Use gave him power here also, though they that he faced knew not what it was. And he had other powers over men and himself. He spoke. “Good soldiers! I am her brother, twin with her, and I had a vision that I was not utterly to forsake her. The priest said that I was to mind it.” He brought his lute forward, and as he spoke he drew from the strings notes of wistfulness and beauty. “So we started many months ago, on a pilgrimage from Pont-de-Lys in Limousin (for we are of Limousin) to Our Lady of Roche-de-Frêne. And after that we fared on a long way to the north, to the famous shrine of Saint Thomas in Burgundy.” He was playing very sweetly, notes of unearthly tenderness and melancholy. “There the vision came again and told me to return the way we had come to Limousin, and then, without rest, to go on pilgrimage to Saint James, the brother of the Lord, at Compostella.” He changed and deepened the strain until it had solemnity, became music played in churches. “She speaks not often to me, nor I to her. She touches me not, and I touch not her. But the vision said, ‘Go with her to Our Lady of Roche-de-Frêne, and then to the shrine of Saint Thomas’; and then it said, ‘Turn and go with her to Compostella.’ The priest said, ‘Obey that which spoke to you, and It will see that you are not hindered.’” His lips shut. He had spoken in a voice that he knew how to use so as to bring the heart into acquiescence, and his fingers still spoke on, upon the strings of the lute. The half-ring parted. It felt horror of the saffron cross, but, strange to itself, it also now felt pity and an impulse to help. Its ill passion fell cold and dead. Sufficiently swift and deep and for sufficiently long time came the change. Whether there was responsible some saint, or suggestion, or these beings’ proper motion, here was what answered for miracle. The giant was the spokesman. “The way is clear so far as we are named! Go on, poor soul, and brother jongleur, and maybe there’s a star somewhere to shine for you!—Nay, I’ll go before and see that no man of Cap-du-Loup breaks sanctuary—no, nor harms you, jongleur!” CHAPTER XXIII CAP-DU-LOUP THE giant was a Saint Christopher to Jael and Elias. He was great of height and bulk, feared for his strength and liked because of a broad simplicity and good-nature, apparent when he was not angry or hot in the midst of allowed slaughter and rapine. For the saffron cross and the jongleur he proved, this day, the right convoy.