“A goodly security!” said the Knight Templar; “and what do you proffer as a pledge?”

“This reliquary,” said the Palmer, taking a small ivory box from his bosom, and crossing himself, “containing a portion of the true cross, brought from the Monastery of Mount Carmel.”

The Prior of Jorvaulx crossed himself and repeated a pater noster, in which all devoutly joined, excepting the Jew, the Mahomedans, and the Templar; the latter of whom, without vailing his bonnet, or testifying any reverence for the alleged sanctity of the relic, took from his neck a gold chain, which he flung on the board, saying⁠—“Let Prior Aymer hold my pledge and that of this nameless vagrant, in token that when the Knight of Ivanhoe comes within the four seas of Britain , he underlies the challenge of Brian de Bois-Guilbert, which, if he answer not, I will proclaim him as a coward on the walls of every Temple Court in Europe .”