go down there tonight!"

"Thou forgettest I am a bishop; I can lay spirits if they arise."

The sexton stood at the open door--a group of the bishop's
retainers farther off--that iron door which never opened to inmate
before.

Geoffrey and the Jew advanced to the grave, amidst stone coffins
and recesses in the walls, where the dead lay, much as in the
catacombs.

They stopped before a certain recess.

There, swathed in woollen winding sheets, lay the mute form of
Wilfred of Aescendune.

"Let him see thee when he arises. The sight of this deathly place
may slay him. He will awake as from sleep. Take this sponge--bathe
well the brow; how the aromatic odour fills the vaults!"

A minute--no result. Another.

"Dog, hast thou deceived me and slain him? If so, thou shalt not
escape."

"Patience," said the Jew.

A heavy sigh escaped the sleeper.

"Thank God, he lives," said the bishop.

"Where am I? Have I slept long?"

"With friends--all is well.

"Cover his face; now bear him out to the air."

. . . . .

A barque was leaving the ancient port of Pevensey, bound for the
east. Two friends--one in the attire of a bishop, and a youth who
looked like a recent convalescent--stood on the deck.

"Farewell to England--dear England," said the younger.

"Thou mayest revisit it after thou hast fulfilled thy desire to
pray at thy Saviour's tomb, and to tread the holy soil His sacred
Feet have trodden; but it must be years hence."

"My best prayers must be for thee."

"Tut, tut, my child; thy adventures form an episode I love to think
of. See, Beachy Head recedes; anon thou shalt see the towers of
Coutances Cathedral across the deep."

CHAPTER XXV. IN THE FOREST OF LEBANON.

Thirty years had passed away since the events recorded in our last
chapter, and the mighty Conqueror himself had gone to render an
account of his stewardship to the Judge of all men.

The thoughts and aspirations of all Christian people were now
attracted to far different subjects from the woes or wrongs of the
English nation. The Crusades had begun. Peter the Hermit had moved
all Christendom by his fiery eloquence, and sent them to avenge the
wrongs the pilgrims of the cross had sustained from Turkish hands,
and to free the holy soil from the spawn of the false prophet.

Since the Caliph Omar received the capitulation of Jerusalem, in
637, and established therein the religion of Mahomed, no greater
calamity had ever befallen Chri