The companion of the church dignitary was a man past forty, thin,

strong, tall, and muscular; an athletic figure, which long fatigue and

constant exercise seemed to have left none of the softer part of the

human form, having reduced the whole to brawn, bones, and sinews, which

had sustained a thousand toils, and were ready to dare a thousand more.

His head was covered with a scarlet cap, faced with fur--of that kind

which the French call "mortier", from its resemblance to the shape of an

inverted mortar.

His countenance was therefore fully displayed, and its

expression was calculated to impress a degree of awe, if not of

fear, upon strangers. High features, naturally strong and powerfully

expressive, had been burnt almost into Negro blackness by constant

exposure to the tropical sun, and might, in their ordinary state, be

said to slumber after the storm of passion had passed away; but the

projection of the veins of the forehead, the readiness with which the

upper lip and its thick black moustaches quivered upon the slightest

emotion, plainly intimated that the tempest might be again and easily

awakened. His keen, piercing, dark eyes, told in every glance a history

of difficulties subdued, and dangers dared, and seemed to challenge

opposition to his wishes, for the pleasure of sweeping it from his road

by a determined exertion of courage and of will; a deep scar on his brow

gave additional sternness to his countenance, and a sinister expression

to one of his eyes, which had been slightly injured on the same

occasion, and of which the vision, though perfect, was in a slight and

partial degree distorted.

The upper dress of this personage resembled that of his companion in

shape, being a long monastic mantle; but the colour, being scarlet,

showed that he did not belong to any of the four regular orders of

monks. On the right shoulder of the mantle there was cut, in white

cloth, a cross of a peculiar form. This upper robe concealed what at

first view seemed rather inconsistent with its form, a shirt, namely, of

linked mail, with sleeves and gloves of the same, curiously plaited and

interwoven, as flexible to the body as those which are now wrought in

the stocking-loom, out of less obdurate materials. The fore-part of his

thighs, where the folds of his mantle permitted them to be seen, were

also covered with linked mail; the knees and feet were defended by

splints, or thin plates of steel, ingeniously jointed upon each

other; and mail hose, reaching from the ankle to the knee, effectually

protected the legs, and completed the rider's defensive armour. In

his girdle he wore a long and double-edged dagger, which was the only

offensive weapon about his person.




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