Arnold of Falkenhorst--stripped of his Moorish garb, and wearing in its stead his discarded robes of knighthood, his collar and blazoned shield about his neck, his golden spurs on his heel, and his swordless scabbard belted to his side--was placed before his peers, to abide their verdict. Beside him stood a page, displaying his crested burgonet and the banner of his ancient house, and behind him a group of chosen warders, keeping a vigilant watch on every motion. But the precaution seemed needless: the spirits of the prisoner had sunk, and he seemed deserted alike by the almost incredible courage which he had so often displayed, and by the presence of mind for which he had been so widely and so justly famous. His countenance, even to his lips, was as white as sculptured marble, and his eyes had a dead and vacant glare; and scarcely did he seem conscious of the purpose for which that multitude was collected around him. Once, and once only, as his eye fell upon the fatal tree, which cast its long shadow in terrible distinctness across the field of judgment, with its accursed noose, and the ministers of blood around it, a rapid and convulsive shudder ran through every limb; it was but a momentary affection, and, when passed, no sign of emotion could be traced in his person, unless it were a slight and almost imperceptible rocking of his whole frame from side to side, as he stood awaiting his doom. Utter despondency seemed to have taken possession of his whole soul; and the soldier who had looked unmoved into the very eye of death in the field, sunk like the veriest coward under the apprehensions of that fate which he had no longer the resolution to bear like a man. The herald stepped forth, in his quartered tabard and crown of dignity, and the trumpeter by his side blew a summons on his brazen instrument that might have waked the dead. While the sounds were yet ringing in the ears of all, the clear voice of the king-at-arms cried aloud: “Arnold of Falkenhorst, count, banneret, and baron, hear! Thou standest this day before thy peers, accused of heresy and treason; a forsworn and perjured knight; a deserter from thy banner, and a denier of thy God; leagued with the pagan dogs against the holy church; a recreant, a traitor, and a renegado; with arms in thine hands wert thou taken, battling against the cross which thou didst swear to maintain with the best blood of thy veins! Speak! dost thou disavow the deed?” The lips of Arnold moved, but no words came forth. It seemed as if some swelling convulsion of his throat smothered his utterance. There was a long pause, all expecting that the prisoner would seek to justify his defection, or challenge--as his last resource--the trial by the judgment of God. The rocking motion of his frame increased, and it almost appeared as if he were about to fall upon the earth. The trumpet’s din again broke the silence, and the herald’s voice again made proclamation: