ng up and down the apartment.

"What they may believe, I know not," said Malvoisin, calmly; "but I know
well, that in this our day, clergy and laymen, take ninety-nine to the
hundred, will cry 'amen' to the Grand Master's sentence."

"I have it," said Bois-Guilbert. "Albert, thou art my friend. Thou must
connive at her escape, Malvoisin, and I will transport her to some place
of greater security and secrecy."

"I cannot, if I would," replied the Preceptor; "the mansion is filled
with the attendants of the Grand Master, and others who are devoted to
him. And, to be frank with you, brother, I would not embark with you
in this matter, even if I could hope to bring my bark to haven. I have
risked enough already for your sake. I have no mind to encounter a
sentence of degradation, or even to lose my Preceptory, for the sake
of a painted piece of Jewish flesh and blood. And you, if you will be
guided by my counsel, will give up this wild-goose chase, and fly your
hawk at some other game. Think, Bois-Guilbert,--thy present rank, thy
future honours, all depend on thy place in the Order. Shouldst thou
adhere perversely to thy passion for this Rebecca, thou wilt give
Beaumanoir the power of expelling thee, and he will not neglect it. He
is jealous of the truncheon which he holds in his trembling gripe, and
he knows thou stretchest thy bold hand towards it. Doubt not he will
ruin thee, if thou affordest him a pretext so fair as thy protection of
a Jewish sorceress. Give him his scope in this matter, for thou canst
not control him. When the staff is in thine own firm grasp, thou mayest
caress the daughters of Judah, or burn them, as may best suit thine own
humour."

"Malvoisin," said Bois-Guilbert, "thou art a cold-blooded--"

"Friend," said the Preceptor, hastening to fill up the blank, in which
Bois-Guilbert would probably have placed a worse word,--"a cold-blooded
friend I am, and therefore more fit to give thee advice. I tell thee
once more, that thou canst not save Rebecca. I tell thee once more,
thou canst but perish with her. Go hie thee to the Grand Master--throw
thyself at his feet and tell him--"

"Not at his feet, by Heaven! but to the dotard's very beard will I
say--"

"Say to him, then, to his beard," continued Malvoisin, coolly, "that you
love this captive Jewess to distraction; and the more thou dost enlarge
on thy passion, the greater will be his haste to end it by the death of
the fair enchantress; while th