“Sir Palmer,” said Sir Brian de Bois-Guilbert scornfully, “this assumed forgetfulness, after so much has been remembered, comes too late to serve your purpose. I will myself tell the name of the knight before whose lance fortune and my horse’s fault occasioned my falling⁠—it was the Knight of Ivanhoe; nor was there one of the six that, for his years, had more renown in arms.⁠—Yet this will I say, and loudly⁠—that were he in England , and durst repeat, in this week’s tournament, the challenge of St. John-de-Acre, I, mounted and armed as I now am, would give him every advantage of weapons, and abide the result.”

“Your challenge would soon be answered,” replied the Palmer, “were your antagonist near you. As the matter is, disturb not the peaceful hall with vaunts of the issue of the conflict, which you well know cannot take place. If Ivanhoe ever returns from Palestine , I will be his surety that he meets you.”

“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 .”