"What! spoke you of Richard
of England--of Coeur de Lion--the champion of Christendom?"
His cheek turned pale and his knees trembled as he spoke. The
Templar looked at him, with his iron visage contorted into a
smile of contempt.
"Knowest thou what thou look'st like, Sir Conrade, at this
moment? Not like the politic and valiant Marquis of Montserrat,
not like him who would direct the Council of Princes and
determine the fate of empires--but like a novice, who, stumbling
upon a conjuration in his master's book of gramarye, has raised
the devil when he least thought of it, and now stands terrified
at the spirit which appears before him."
"I grant you," said Conrade, recovering himself, "that--unless
some other sure road could be discovered--thou hast hinted at
that which leads most direct to our purpose. But, blessed Mary!
we shall become the curse of all Europe, the malediction of every
one, from the Pope on his throne to the very beggar at the church
gate, who, ragged and leprous, in the last extremity of human
wretchedness, shall bless himself that he is neither Giles Amaury
nor Conrade of Montserrat.
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