Page:Ivanhoe (1820 Volume 3).pdf/330

 was amply supplied with galleries and benches for the use of spectators.

Upon the present occasion, a throne was erected at the eastern end for the Grand Master, surrounded with seats of distinction for the Preceptors and Knights of the Order. Over these floated the sacred standard, called Le Beau-seant, which was the ensign, as its name was the battle-cry, of the Templars.

At the opposite end of the lists was a pile of faggots, so arranged around a stake, deeply fixed in the ground, as to leave a space for the victim whom they were destined to consume, to enter within the fatal circle, in order to be chained to the stake by the fetters which hung ready for that purpose. Beside this deadly apparatus stood four black slaves, whose colour and African features, then so little known in England, appalled the multitude, who gazed on them as on demons employed about their own diabolical exercises. These men stirred not, excepting now and then, under the direction of one who seemed their chief, to shift and replace the ready fuel.