Half dancing, half marching,
and reeling at every step, he came along, followed closely by a dozen
companions one degree less burly than himself, but at least quite as
drunk; and each had upon his breast or shoulder the cross he had
received that day. Behind them more and more, closer and closer, the
others came stumbling, rolling, jostling each other, howling the chorus
of the song. And every now and then the leader, swinging his banner and
his wine jug, sent a shower of red drops into the faces of his
followers, some of whom laughed, and some swore loudly in curses that
made themselves felt through the roaring din. But loudest, highest,
clearest of all, from within the heart of the drunken crowd, came one
of those voices that are made to be heard in storm and battle. In a
tune of its own, regardless of the singing of all the rest, it was
chanting the Magnificat anima mea Dominum. Long-drawn, sustained, and
of brazen quality, it calmly defied all other din, and as the crowd
drew nearer Gilbert saw through the torchlight the thin white face of a
very tall man in the midst, with half-closed eyes and lips that wore a
look of pain as he sang--the face, the look, the voice of a man who in
the madness of liquor was still a fanatic.
The hot close breath of the ribald crew went before it in the warm
summer night, the torches threw a moving yellow glare upon faces red as
flame, or ghastly white, and here and there the small crosses of
scarlet cloth fastened to the men's tunics caught the light like
splashes of fresh blood.
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