, his voice issuing most canonically from the roof
of his mouth, through the medium of a very musical nose newly tuned for
the occasion. But he had not proceeded far enough to exhibit all the
variety and compass of this melodious instrument, when a noise was heard
at the gate, and a party of armed men entered the chapel. The song of
the choristers died away in a shake of demisemiquavers, contrary to all
the rules of psalmody. The organ-blower, who was working his musical
air-pump with one hand, and with two fingers and a thumb of the other
insinuating a peeping-place through the curtain of the organ-gallery,
was struck motionless by the double operation of curiosity and fear;
while the organist, intent only on his performance, and spreading all
his fingers to strike a swell of magnificent chords, felt his harmonic
spirit ready to desert his body on being answered by the ghastly rattle
of empty keys, and in the consequent agitato furioso of the internal
movements of his feelings, was preparing to restore harmony by the segue
subito of an appoggiatura con foco with the corner of a book of anthems
on the head of his neglectful assistant, when his hand and his attention
together were arrested by the scene below. The voice of the abbot
subsided into silence through a descending scale of long-drawn melody,
like the sound of the ebbing sea to the explorers of a cave. In a few
moments all was silence, interrupted only by the iron tread of the armed
intruders, as it rang on the marble floor and echoed from the vaulted
aisles.

The leader strode up to the altar; and placing himself opposite to the
abbot, and between the earl and Matilda, in such a manner that the four
together seemed to stand on the four points of a diamond, exclaimed, "In
the name of King Henry, I forbid the ceremony, and attach Robert Earl of
Huntingdon as a traitor!" and at the same time he held his drawn sword
between the lovers, as if to emblem that royal authority which laid its
temporal ban upon their contract. The earl drew his own sword instantly,
and struck down the interposing weapon; then clasped his left arm round
Matilda, who sprang into his embrace, and held his sword before her with
his right hand. His yeomen ranged themselves at his side, and stood with
their swords drawn, still and prepared, like men determined to die in
his defence. The soldiers, confident in superiority of numbers,
paused. The abbot took advantage of the pause to introduce a wo