Seated at the same table with Stephen Colonna was a man of noble presence, of about three or four and thirty years of age, in whom Adrian instantly recognised Walter de Montreal.  This celebrated knight was scarcely of the personal appearance which might have corresponded with the terror his name generally excited.  His face was handsome, almost to the extreme of womanish delicacy.  His fair hair waved long and freely over a white and unwrinkled forehead:  the life of a camp and the suns of Italy had but little embrowned his clear and healthful complexion, which retained much of the bloom of youth.  His features were aquiline and regular; his eyes, of a light hazel, were large, bright, and penetrating; and a short, but curled beard and moustachio, trimmed with soldier-like precision, and very little darker than the hair, gave indeed a martial expression to his comely countenance, but rather the expression which might have suited the hero of courts and tournaments, than the chief of a brigand’s camp.  The aspect, manner, and bearing, of the Provencal were those which captivate rather than awe,—­blending, as they did, a certain military frankness with the easy and graceful dignity of one conscious of gentle birth, and accustomed to mix, on equal terms, with the great and noble.  His form happily contrasted and elevated the character of a countenance which required strength and stature to free its uncommon beauty from the charge of effeminacy, being of great height and remarkable muscular power, without the least approach to clumsy and unwieldy bulk:  it erred, indeed, rather to the side of leanness than flesh,—­at once robust and slender.  But the chief personal distinction of this warrior, the most redoubted lance of Italy, was an air and carriage of chivalric and heroic grace, greatly set off at this time by his splendid dress, which was of brown velvet sown with pearls, over which hung the surcoat worn by the Knights of the Hospital, whereon was wrought, in white, the eight-pointed cross that made the badge of his order.  The Knight’s attitude was that of earnest conversation, bending slightly forward towards the Colonna, and resting both his hands—­which (according to the usual distinction of the old Norman race, (Small hands and feet, however disproportioned to the rest of the person, were at that time deemed no less a distinction of the well-born, than they have been in a more refined age.  Many readers will remember the pain occasioned to Petrarch by his tight shoes.  The supposed beauty of this peculiarity is more derived from the feudal than the classic time.) from whom, though born in Provence, Montreal boasted his descent) were small and delicate, the fingers being covered with jewels, as was the fashion of the day—­upon the golden hilt of an enormous sword, on the sheath of which was elaborately wrought the silver lilies that made the device of the Provencal Brotherhood of Jerusalem.

“Good morrow, fair kinsman!” said Stephen.  “Seat thyself, I pray; and know in this knightly visitor the celebrated Sieur de Montreal.”