One name burst at once from every lip in accents of the deepest scorn. It was the name of one whose titles had stood highest upon their lists of fame; whose deeds had been celebrated by many a wandering minstrel even among the remote hills of Caledonia or the morasses of green Erin; the valor of whose heart and the strength of whose arm had been related far and near by many a pilgrim; whose untimely fall had been mourned by many a maid beside the banks of his native Rhine!--“Arnold of Falkenhorst!” The frame of the culprit was convulsed till the meshes of his linked mail clattered from the nervous motion of the limbs which they enclosed; a crimson flush passed across his countenance, but not a word escaped from his lips, and he gazed straight before him with a fixed, unmeaning stare--how sadly changed from the glance of fire which would so short a time ago have quelled with its indignant lightning the slightest opposition to his indomitable pride! For an instant all remained petrified, as it were, by wonder and vexation of spirit. The next moment a fierce rush toward the captive, with naked weapons and bended brows, threatened immediate destruction to the wretched renegado. Scarcely, however, was this spirit manifested, before it was checked by the grand-master of the temple, who stood beside the seat of Lusignan. He threw his venerable person between the victim and the uplifted weapons that thirsted for his blood. “Forbear!” he cried, in the deep tones of determination--“forbear, soldiers of the cross, and servants of the Most High! Will ye contaminate your knightly swords with the base gore of a traitor to his standard, a denier of his God? Fitter the axe of the headsman, or the sordid gibbet, for the recreant and coward! Say forth, Beau Sire de Lusignan--have I spoken well?” “Well and nobly hast thou spoken, Amaury de Montleon,” replied the monarch. “By to-morrow’s dawn shall the captive meet the verdict of his peers; and if they condemn him--by the cross which I wear on my breast, and the faith to which I trust for salvation, shall he die like a dog on the gallows, and his name shall be infamous for ever! Lead him away, Sir John de Crespigny, and answer for your prisoner with your head! And you, fair sirs, meet me at sunrise in the tiltyard: there will we sit in judgment before our assembled hosts, and all men shall behold our doom. Till then, farewell!” In the dogged silence of despair was the prisoner led away, and in the silence of sorrow and dismay the barons of that proud array passed away from the presence of the king: and the night was again solitary and undisturbed.