wither, and exterminate you, till your name perish from off the face of the earth. Blessed shall he be whose weapon is but tinged with your blood, and thrice blessed shall he be whose hands reek with it. As it is written, Thy foot shall be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of thy dogs may be red through the same."" As he spoke, the Crusaders prepared to depart; and the sound of their movement as those who rode reined up their steeds, and those who had dismounted sprung on theirs, signing to their attendants, who on foot or on horse hastened forward to stand by the reins of their respective lords, was, in the language and in the ears of the Albigeois, like the sound of many waters.

"Hear, mighty lords," cried Pierre, "hear yet a word. Suffer us but to depart, at

least the women and the little ones: suffer them at least to depart in safety into the mountains of the Cevennes, or the region of Arragon. Spare the lives of wretched peasants; send us forth into the wilderness

lacking all things but God and his wordand if we perish, we perish: wherefore should you set yourselves in array, and make your battle strong against men, amid thousands of whom there is not one who skills to draw the sword, or fight with spear and shield?”

At this appeal the Monk of Montcalm held up his locked hands with an air of supplication to the Bishop of Toulouse. The prelate waved him off indignantly with one arm, while he extended the other towards the Albigeois.

"What!" he cried, "shall ye be suffered to go forth like the locusts in that mystic vision of him who saw the apocalypse in Patmos, to shed your poison over the face of all the earth? Behold," he added, pausing, and holding forth his robe; "behold I turn once more like the ambassadors of old, to proffer peace or war, safety or destruction. Choose, while yet a moment for choice.— Choose."

The Albigeois, as one man, averted their heads, and with one voice called on Heaven;

and the pastor with a faint exclamation between triumph and thanksgiving, fell quite exhausted into the arms of Genevieve. The Bishop of Toulouse cast a terrible look on the devoted band; "The volume is closedthe door is shut-the day is past," he cried;

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your blood be on your own heads:-tomorrow ye die."

CHAPTER IV.

My steed shall ride through ranks so rude,
As through the moorland fern;

Then ne'er let the gentle Norman blood

Grow cold for highland kern.

THE ANTIQUARY.

THE carousal at the Castle that night was deep and late. The Crusaders felt like men who had but to lift an arm on the morrow, whose sole and single blow was sufficient to sweep the Albigeois from the face of the earth. The cups were pledged and drained to the destruction of heretics. The Monk of Montcalm alone was absent; he had retired with a grieved heart to his shed in the courts of the Castle, and passed the night in prayer. De Montfort, whose spirit, ferocious as it was martial, kindled alike at the

thoughts of a slaughter or a battle, was in tumultuous spirits, and rudely proposed that the lady Isabelle should accompany them to what he called the heretic-hunt on the "You shall hold me excused,

morrow.

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lord of Montfort," said the lady shrinking at the motion. Nay, lady," said Sir Aymer, "be not so fond to say us nay— what, art thou not an Atalanta, a huntress, one of Dian's nymphs? I warrant me, thou lovest to ride through the green wood with a merlin on thy wrist, or to wander on the banks of the merry Garonne, to fly thy sparhawk at a pigeon, or mark thy falcon stoop at a partridge."-"Tush," cried De Montfort, "thou talkest of sport for my lady's waiting-damsels. I warrant, she better loves to spur her palfrey through glade and brake, when the huntsman winds a mort, and the stag holds out his throat to her fair hand, and the raven perching near flutters and croaks till the quarry is broke."

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Never, trust me," said the lady, the tears almost coming to her beautiful eyes,