“It was a fine sight!” cried Julian.  “I would not have missed it for worlds.  That villainous hunchback!  So he was a damnable heretic after all!  I grieve we ever stood his friend.  May he perish like the vile creature he is!  I will ask Brother Emmanuel to set me a penance for having touched him that day when we thought him an innocent trader.

“Edred, thinkest thou that it can be true that Brother Emmanuel is himself a heretic?  If it be, we must drive him forth with blows and curses.  To sit down at board with a heretic, to hear teaching from his lips!  Beshrew me, but one might as well have a friend from the pit for an instructor!  It cannot be; surely it cannot be.”

The boy spoke hotly and angrily.  He had stopped short as if in the heat of argument, and Edred saw by the flash in his eye that he had caught sight of some lurking spy close at hand.

“Belike no,” answered Edred cautiously, but taking his cue instantly from the other.  “I did not well hear what Brother Fabian said; surely it could be naught so bad as that?”

“I scarcely heard myself.  I was something aweary by that time of the spectacle, and methought all the heretics had been dealt with.  I saw that thou, like myself, wouldst fain stretch thy limbs once again, and I had shifted too far away to be certain what was said.  But I did hear the name of Brother Emmanuel spoken, and there was a call for him, and he came not.

“Edred, can it be that he feared to come?  Hath he a guilty conscience?  If that be so, shall we strive to find him and keep watch upon him ourselves, that if the good prior comes to search for him at Chad we may be able to give him up, though he have hidden himself never so cunningly?”

“Marry, a good thought.  It is certainly something strange that he did not come at the prior’s summons-and he a brother of the order too.  Sure, it looks somewhat as though he were afraid.  But if that be so, we shall scarce find him at Chad.  He will have benefited by the absence of the household to make good his escape.

“Beshrew me, but he is a crafty knave.  Who would have thought it of him?”

“When men turn heretic they seem to be indued with all the cunning of the devil!” cried Julian hotly.  “But let us not dally here; let us run within and strive to seek and to find him.  It may be he will think he may hide himself the better in some nook or corner of the house, since he be well known all around; and the good prior said somewhat of having kept a watch upon him.  But I trow he cannot hide so well but what we shall find him.  I would fain earn my forgiveness for having shielded one heretic by helping to give up another.

“Come, Edred, let us be going.  Those priests are as crafty as foxes when the heretic leaven gets into them.”

The brothers dashed away again towards the house; and when once within the shelter of the walls, Julian nipped his brother’s hand, saying in a whisper: