"Benedicite, Sir Templar," replied De Bracy, "pray you to keep better
rule with your tongue when I am the theme of it. By the Mother of
Heaven, I am a better Christian man than thou and thy fellowship; for
the 'bruit' goeth shrewdly out, that the most holy Order of the Temple
of Zion nurseth not a few heretics within its bosom, and that Sir Brian
de Bois-Guilbert is of the number."

"Care not thou for such reports," said the Templar; "but let us think of
making good the castle.--How fought these villain yeomen on thy side?"

"Like fiends incarnate," said De Bracy. "They swarmed close up to
the walls, headed, as I think, by the knave who won the prize at the
archery, for I knew his horn and baldric. And this is old Fitzurse's
boasted policy, encouraging these malapert knaves to rebel against us!
Had I not been armed in proof, the villain had marked me down seven
times with as little remorse as if I had been a buck in season. He told
every rivet on my armour with a cloth-yard shaft, that rapped against
my ribs with as little compunction as if my bones had been of iron--But
that I wore a shirt of Spanish mail under my plate-coat, I had been
fairly sped."

"But you maintained your post?" said the Templar. "We lost the outwork
on our part."