“ Palestine !” repeated the Saxon; “ Palestine ! how many ears are turned to the tales which dissolute crusaders, or hypocritical pilgrims, bring from that fatal land! I too might ask⁠—I too might enquire⁠—I too might listen with a beating heart to fables which the wily strollers devise to cheat us into hospitality⁠—but no⁠—The son who has disobeyed me is no longer mine; nor will I concern myself more for his fate than for that of the most worthless among the millions that ever shaped the cross on their shoulder, rushed into excess and blood-guiltiness, and called it an accomplishment of the will of God.”

He knit his brows, and fixed his eyes for an instant on the ground; as he raised them, the folding doors at the bottom of the hall were cast wide, and, preceded by the majordomo with his wand, and four domestics bearing blazing torches, the guests of the evening entered the apartment.