ich is that
of a dungeon," and he shivered, drawing his costly shawl closer
round him.

"Sir Abbot, which will you taste first--the red wine or the
yellow? The red is the stronger but the yellow is the more costly
and a drink for saints in Paradise and abbots upon earth. The
yellow from Kyrenia? Well, you are wise. They say it was my
patron St. Helena's favourite vintage when she visited Cyprus,
bringing with her Disma's cross."

"Are you a Christian then?" asked the Prior. "I took you for a
Paynim."

"Were I not a Christian would I visit this foggy land of yours to
trade in wine--a liquor forbidden to the Moslems?" answered the
man, drawing aside the folds of his shawl and revealing a silver
crucifix upon his broad breast. "I am a merchant of Famagusta in
Cyprus, Georgios by name, and of the Greek Church which you
Westerners hold to be heretical. But what do you think of that
wine, holy Abbot?"

The Prior smacked his lips.

"Friend Georgios, it is indeed a drink for the saints," he
answered.

"Ay, and has been a drink for sinners ere now--for this is the
very tipple that Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, drank with her Roman
lover Antony, of whom you, being a learned man, may have heard.
And you, Sir Knight, what say you of the black stuff--'Mavro,' we
call it--not the common, but that which has been twenty years in
cask?"

"I have tasted worse," said Wulf, holding out his horn to be
filled again.

"Ay, and will never taste better if you live as long as the
Wandering Jew. Well, sirs, may I take your orders? If you are
wise you will make them large, since no such chance is likely to
come your way again, and that wine, yellow or red, will keep a
century."

Then the chaffering began, and it was long and keen. Indeed, at
one time they nearly left the place without purchasing, but the
merchant Georgios called them back and offered to come to their
terms if they would take double the quantity, so as to make up a
cartload between them, which he said he would deliver before
Christmas Day. To this they consented at length, and departed
homewards made happy by the gifts with which the chapman clinched
his bargain, after the Eastern fashion. To the Prior he gave a
roll of worked silk to be used as an edging to an altar cloth or
banner, and to Wulf a dagger handle, quaintly carved in olive
wood to the fashion of a rampant lion. Wulf thanked him, and then
asked him with a somewhat shamed face if he had more embroidery
fo