ampion 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."

"If thou takest it thus," said the Grand Master, with the same composure
which characterized him all through this remarkable dialogue, "let us
hold there has nothing passed between us--that we have spoken in our
sleep--have awakened, and the vision is gone."

"It never can depart," answered Conrade.

"Visions of ducal crowns and kingly diadems are, indeed, somewhat
tenacious of their place in the imagination," replied the Grand Master.

"Well," answered Conrade, "let me but first try to break peace between
Austria and England."

They parted. Conrade remained standing still upon the spot, and watching
the flowing white cloak of the Templar as he stalked slowly away, and
gradually disappeared amid the fast-sinking darkness of the Oriental
night. Proud, ambitious, unscrupulous, and politic, the Marquis of
Montserrat was yet not cruel by nature. He was a voluptuary and an
epicurean, and, like many who profess this character, was averse,
even upon selfish motives, from inflicting pain or witnessing acts of
cruelty; and he retained also a general sense of respect for his own
reputation, which sometimes supplies the want of the better principle by
which reputation is to be maintained.

"I have," he said, as his eyes still watched the point at which he had
seen the last slight wave of the Templar's mantle--"I have, in truth,
raised the devil with a vengeance! Who would have thou