"
The Knight of the Holy Sepulchre beckoned them to follow, and
together they gained the outskirts of the crowd.
Etienne de Malville has greatly changed since we last beheld him.
In the place of the sprightly, impetuous youth, our readers must
imagine a warrior, past the middle age; one whose scanty hair was
already deeply tinged with gray. Thirty years had left many
wrinkles on his brow; but where impatience and fiery temper had
once sat visible to all, age and experience had substituted
self-control and wisdom.
"I have to thank thee, my valiant brother in arms, for the life of
my son. To whom do I render my thanks? Well do I know thy fame as
the Knight of the Holy Sepulchre; but our vow accomplished, we may
lay aside our incognitos and assume our names once more."
"We may indeed, and I will utter the name of one--long since
numbered with the dead in the records of men, and re-assume it upon
this sacred mount."
Etienne gazed intently upon the open face, but no look of
recognition followed.
"I crave thy pardon, if I ought to recognise thee, yet truth
compels me to say I do not."
"Nor can I wonder; didst thou recognise me, thou wouldst think me a
ghost permitted to revisit the land of the living--one whom thou
didst actually behold wrapped in the cere cloth of the tomb!--whose
funeral thou didst witness with thine own eyes! Yet he lives, and
feels sure that thou wilt not revoke, upon this holy hill, that
pardon from the living, thou didst bestow upon the seeming dead.
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