He hath held
communication with an excommunicated person, capital 57, Ut fratres non
participent cum excommunicatis, and therefore hath a portion in Anathema
Maranatha. - 3d, He hath conversed with strange women, contrary to the capital,
Ut fratres non conversantur cum extraneis mulieribus. - 4th, He hath not
avoided, nay, he hath, it is to be feared, solicited the kiss of woman; by which
saith the last rule of our renowned Order, Ut fugiantur oscula, the soldiers of
the Cross are brought into a snare. For which heinous and multiplied guilt,
Brian de Bois-Guilbert should be cut off and cast out from our congregation,
were he the right hand and right eye thereof.«
    He paused. A low murmur went through the assembly. Some of the younger part,
who had been inclined to smile at the statute De osculis fugiendis, became now
grave enough, and anxiously waited what the Grand Master was next to propose.
    »Such,« he said, »and so great should indeed be the punishment of a
Knight-Templar, who wilfully offended against the rules of his Order in such
weighty points. But if, by means of charms and of spells, Satan had obtained
dominion over the Knight, perchance because he cast his eyes too lightly upon a
damsel's beauty, we are then rather to lament than chastise his backsliding;
and, imposing on him only such penance as may purify him from his iniquity, we
are to turn the full edge of our indignation upon the accursed instrument, which
had so well-nigh occasioned his utter falling away. - Stand forth, therefore,
and bear witness, ye who have witnessed these unhappy doings, that we may judge
of the sum and bearing thereof; and judge whether our justice may be satisfied
with the punishment of this infidel woman, or if we must go on, with a bleeding
heart, to the farther proceeding against our brother.«
    Several witnesses were called upon to prove the risks to which Bois-Guilbert
exposed himself in endeavouring to save Rebecca from the blazing castle, and his
neglect of his personal defence in attending to her safety. The men gave these
details with the exaggerations common to vulgar minds which have been strongly
excited by any remarkable event, and their natural disposition to the marvellous
was greatly increased by the satisfaction which their evidence seemed to afford
to the eminent person for whose information it had been delivered. Thus the
dangers which Bois-Guilbert surmounted, in themselves sufficiently great, became
portentous in their narrative. The devotion of the Knight to Rebecca's defence
was exaggerated beyond the bounds