"In that event, I have to-night enregistered my name among the goodly
company of Love's Lunatics,--as yokefellow with Dan Merlin in his
thornbush, and with wise Salomon when he capered upon the high places of
Chemosh, and with Duke Ares sheepishly agrin in the net of Mulciber.
Rogues all, madame! fools all! yet always the flesh trammels us, and
allures the soul to such sensual delights as bar its passage toward the
eternal life wherein alone lies the empire and the heritage of the soul.
And why does this carnal prison so impede the soul? Because Satan once
ranked among the sons of God, and the Eternal Father, as I take it, has
not yet forgotten the antique relationship,--and hence it is permitted
even in our late time that always the flesh rebel against the spirit,
and that always these so tiny and so thin-voiced tricksters, these
highly tinted miracles of iniquity, so gracious in demeanor and so
starry-eyed--"

Then he turned and pointed, no longer the orotund zealot but the
expectant captain now. "Look, my Princess!" In the pathway from which he
had recently emerged stood a man in full armor like a sentinel. "Mort de
Dieu, we can but try to get out of this," Sire Edward said.

"You should have tried without talking so much," replied Meregrett. She
followed him. And presently, in a big splash of moonlight, the armed
man's falchion glittered across their way. "Back," he bade them, "for by
the King's orders, I can let no man pass."

"It would be very easy now to strangle this herring," Sire Edward
reflected.

"But it is not easy to strangle a whole school of herring," the fellow
retorted. "Hoh, Messire d'Aquitaine, the bushes of Ermenoueîl are alive