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The earliest dawning of a December's morning had not yet
tinged the eastern sky, when in the port of Barfleur the stirring
bustle which precedes an embarkation broke loudly on the ear
of all who were on foot at that unseemly hour; nor were these
few in number, for all the population of that town — far more
considerable than it appears at present, when mightier cities,
some rendered so by the gigantic march of commerce, some by
the puissant and creative hands of military despotism, have
sprung on every side into existence, and overshadowed its antique
renown — were hastening through the narrow streets toward
the water's edge. The many-paned, stone-latticed casements
gleamed with a thousand lights, casting a cheerful glare
over the motley multitude which swarmed before them with all
the frolic merriment of an unwonted holyday. All classes and
all ranks might there be seen, of every age and sex: barons

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and lords of high degree, clad in the rich attires of a half-barbarous
yet gorgeous age, mounted on splendid horses, and attended
by long retinues of armed and liveried vassals; ladies
and demoiselles of birth and beauty curbing their Spanish jennets,
and casting sidelong looks of love toward the favored
knights curveting in the conscious state of proud humility beside
their bridle-reins — as clearly visible as at high noon, in
the broad radiance of the torches that accompanied their progress;
while all around them and behind crowded the humbler
throng of mariners and artisans, with here a solemn burgher,
proud in his velvet pourpoint and his golden chain, and there
a barefoot monk, far prouder in his frock of sackcloth and his
knotted girdle; and ever and anon a group of merry maidens,
with their high Norman caps and short jupons of parti-colored
serge, crowding around the jongleur* with his ape and gittern—
or pressing on to hear the loftier professor† of the gai-science,
girded with sword and dagger in token of his gentle blood, and
followed by his boy bearing the harp, which then had power to
win, not with the low-born and vulgar throng, but with the noble
and the fair, high favor for its wandering master!

The courts and thoroughfares of the old town — for it was
old even then — by slow degrees grew silent and deserted;
and, ere the sun was well above the wave, the multitudes which
thronged them had rolled downward to the port, and stood in
dense ranks gazing on its calm and sheltered basin. Glorious
indeed and lovely was the sight when the first yellow rays

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streamed over the still waters: they waked the distant summits
of the hills behind the town into a sudden life; they kissed the
crest of every curling ripple that dimpled with its “innumerable
laughter” the azure face of ocean; but, more than all, they
seemed to dwell upon two noble barks, which lay, each riding
at a single anchor, at a short arrow-shot from the white sands
that girt as with a silver frame the liquid mirror of the harbor.

Fashioned by the best skill of that early day, and ornamented
with the most lavish splendor, though widely different from the
floating castles of modern times, those vessels — the picked
cruisers of the British navy — were in their structure no less
picturesque than in their decoration royally magnificent. Long,
low, and buoyant, they floated lightly as birds upon the surface;
their open waists already bristling with the long oars by which,
after the fashion of the Roman galley, they were propelled in
serene weather; their masts clothed with the wings which
seemed in vain to woo the breeze; their elevated sterns and
forecastles blazing with tapestries of gold and silver, reflected
in long lines of light, scarcely broken by the dancing ripples.
The larger of the two bore on her foresail, blazoned in gorgeous
heraldry, the arms of England. The second, somewhat
smaller, but if anything more elegant in her proportions, and
fitted with a nicer taste, although less sumptuous, was painted
white from stem to stern; her oars, fifty in number, of the same
spotless hue, were barred upon the blades with silver; and on
her foresail of white canvass, overlaid with figured damask,
were wrought, among a glittering profusion of devices, in characters
of silver, the words “La Blanche Navire.” Beyond
them, in the outer bay, a dozen ships or more were dimly seen
through the mist-wreaths which the wintry sun was gradually
scattering — their canvass hanging in festoons from their long
yard-arms, and their decks crowded, not with mariners alone,
but with the steel-clad forms of men-at-arms and archers, the

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gallant train of the third Norman who had swayed the destinies
of England.

The youngest son of the sagacious Conqueror, after the death
of the “Red king,” by a rare union of audacity and cunning,
Henry, had seized the sceptre of the fair island — the hereditary
right of his romantic, generous, and gallant brother, who
with the feudatories of his Norman duchy was waging war
upon the Saracen, neglectful of his own and of his subjects'
interests alike, beneath the burning sun of Syria. Already
firmly seated in his usurped dominion ere Robert returned
homeward, nor yet contented with his ill-gained supremacy,
he had wrung from the bold crusader, partly by force but more
by fraud, his continental realms; and adding cruelty which
scarcely can be conceived to violence and fraud, deprived him
of Heaven's choicest blessing, sight, and cast him — of late the
most renowned and glorious knight in Christendom — a miserable,
eyeless captive into the towers of Cardiff, his dungeon
while he lived, and after death his tomb!

No retributive justice had discharged its thunders upon the
guilty one; no gloom sat on his smooth and lordly brow, no
thorns had lurked beneath the circle of Henry's blood-bought
diadem. Fortune had smiled on every effort; had granted every
wish, however wild; had sanctioned every enterprise, however
dubious or desperate: he never had known sorrow; and
from his restless, energetic soul, remorse and penitence were
banished by the incessant turmoil of ambition and the perpetual
excitement of success. And now his dearest wish had been
accomplished — the most especial aim and object of his life
perfected with such absolute security, that his insatiate soul
was satisfied. Absolute lord of England, and undisputed ruler
of the fair Cotentin, he had of late disarmed the league which
for a time had threatened his security; detaching from the cause
of France the powerful count of Anjou, whose daughter — the

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most lovely lady and the most splendid heiress of the time —
he had seen wedded to his first-born and his favorite, William.
The previous day he had beheld the haughty barons tender the
kiss of homage and swear eternal loyalty to the young heir of
England, Normandy, and Anjou; the previous night he had sat
glad and glorious at the festive board, encompassed by all that
was fair, and noble, and high-born, in the great realms he governed,
and among all that proud and graceful circle his eye had
looked on none so brave and beautiful as that young, guiltless
pair for whom he had imbrued, not his hands only, but his very
soul, in blood! He sat on the high dais, beneath the gilded
canopy; and as he quaffed the health of those who had alone
a kindly tenure of his cold and callous heart, a noble knight
approached with bended knee, and placing in his hand a mark
of gold — “Fair sir,” he said, “I, a good knight and loyal —
Thomas Fitz-Stephen — claim of your grace a boon. My father,
Stephen Fitz-Evrard, served faithfully and well, as long as he
did live, your father William — served him by sea, and steered
the ship with his own hand which bore him to that glorious
crown which he right nobly won at Hastings. I pray you,
then, fair king, that you do sell to me, for this gold mark, the
fief I crave of you: that, as Fitz-Evrard served the first King
William, so may Fitz-Stephen serve the first King Henry. I
have right nobly fitted — ay, on mine honor, as beseems a
mighty monarch — here, in the bay of Barfleur, `the Blanche
Navire.' Receive it at my hands, great sir, and suffer me to
steer you homeward; and so may the blessed Virgin and her
Son send us the winds which we would have!”

“Good knight and loyal,” answered the prince, as he received
the proffered coin, “grieved am I, of a truth, and sorrowful, that
altogether I may not confer on you the fief which of good right
you claim: for lo! the bark is chosen — nay, more, apparelled
for my service — which must to-morrow, by Heaven's mercy,

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bear me to that land whither your sire so fortunately guided
mine. But since it may not be that I may sail myself, as would
I could do so, in your good bark, to your true care will I intrust
what I hold dearer than my very soul — my sons, my daughters—
mine and my country's hope; and as your father steered the
FIRST, so shall you steer the THIRD King William, that shall be,
to the white cliffs of England!”

“Well said, my liege!” cried Foulke, the count of Anjou, a
noble-looking baron of tall and stately presence, although far
past the noon of manhood, the father of the lovely bride; “to
better mariner or braver ship than stout Fitz-Stephen and La
Blanche Navire, was never freight intrusted! Quaff we a full
carouse to their blithe voyage! How sayest thou, daughter
mine,” he added, turning to the blushing girl, who sat attired
in all the pomp of newly-wedded royalty beside her youthful
lover — “how sayest thou? wouldst desire a trustier pilot, or a
fleeter galley?”

“Why,” she replied, with a smile half-sweet, half-sorrowful,
while a bright tear-drop glittered in her eye — “why should I
seek for fleetness, when that same speed will but the sooner bear
me from the sight of our fair France, and of thee, too, my father?”

“Dost then, then, rue thy choice?” whispered the ardent
voice of William in her ear; “and wouldst thou tarry here,
when fate and duty summon me hence for England?”

Her full blue eye met his, radiant with true affection, and her
slight fingers trembled in the clasp of her young husband with
a quick thrill of agitation, and her lips parted, but the words
were heard by none save him to whom they were addressed;
for, with the clang of beakers, and the loud swell of joyous music,
and the glad merriment of all the courtly revellers, the toast
of the bride's father passed round the gleaming board: “A blithe
and prosperous voyage — speed to the Blanche Navire, and joy
to all who sail in her!”

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Thus closed the festive evening, and thus the seal of destiny
was set upon a hundred youthful brows, foredoomed, alas! to
an untimely grave beneath the ruthless billows.

The wintry day wore onward; and, wintry though it was,
save for a touch of keenness in the frosty air, and for the leafless
aspect of the country, it might have passed for a more
lightsome season; the sky was pure and cloudless as were the
prospects and the hopes of the gay throng who now embarked
secure and confident beneath its favorable omens. The sun
shone gayly as in the height of summer, and the blue waves
lay sleeping in its lustre as quietly as though they ne'er had
howled despair into the ears of drowning wretches! There
was no thought of peril or of fear — how should there be? The
ships were trustworthy; the seamen skilful, numerous, and
hardy; the breezes fair, though faint; the voyage brief; the
time propitious.

The day wore onward; and it was high noon before the
happy king — his every wish accomplished, secure as he conceived
himself, and firm in the fruition of his blood-bought
majesty — rowed with his glittering train on board the royal
galley. Loud pealed the cheering clamors of his Norman subjects,
bidding their sovereign hail; but louder yet they pealed,
when, with its freight of ladies, the second barge shot forth —
William and his fair sister, and yet fairer bride, and all the loveliest
of the dames that graced the broad Cotentin.

Not yet, however, were the anchors weighed — not yet were
the sails sheeted home; for on the deck of the king's vessel,
beneath an awning of pure cloth-of-gold, a gorgeous board was
spread. Not in the regal hall of Westminster could more of
luxury have been brought together than was displayed upon
that galley's poop. Spread with the softest ermine — meet
carpet for the gentle feet that trod it — cushioned with seats of
velvet, steaming with perfumes the most costly, it was a scene

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resembling more some fairy palace than the wave-beaten fabric
that had braved many a gale, and borne the flag of England
through many a storm in triumph. And there they sat and
feasted, and the red wine-cup circled freely, and the song went
round: their hearts were high and happy, and they forgot the
lapse of hours; and still the reveller's shout was frequent on
the breeze, and still the melody of female tones, blent with the
clang of instrumental music, rang in the ears of those who loitered
on the shore, after the sun had bathed his lower limb in
the serene and peaceful waters.

Then, as it were, awaking from their trance of luxury, the
banqueters broke off. Skiff after skiff turned shoreward, till
none remained on board the royal ship except the monarch and
his train, and that loved son with his bright consort, whom,
parting from them there, he never was to look upon again!
The courses were unfurled, topsails were spread, and pennants
floated seaward; and, as the good ship gathered way, the father
bade adieu — adieu, as he believed it, but for one little night —
to all he loved on earth; and their barge, manned by a score
of powerful and active rowers, wafted the bridal party to the
Blanche Navire, which, as her precious freight drew nigh,
luffed gracefully and swiftly up to meet them, as though she
were a thing of life, conscious and proud of the high honor
she enjoyed in carrying the united hopes of Normandy and
England.

Delay — there was yet more delay! The night had settled
down upon the deep before the harbor of Barfleur was fairly
left behind; and yet so lovely was the night — with the moon,
near her full, soaring superbly through the cloudless sky, and
myriads on myriads of clear stars weaving their mystic dance
around her — that the young voyagers walked to and fro the
deck, rejoicing in the happy chance that had secured to them
so fair a time for their excursion: and William sat aloof, with

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his sweet wife beside him, indulging in those bright anticipations,
those golden dreams of happiness, which indeed make
futurity a paradise to those who have not learned, by the sad
schoolings of experience, that human life is but another name
for human sorrow.

Fairer — the breeze blew fairer; and every sail was set and
drawing, and the light ripples burst with a gurgling sound like
laughter about the snow-white stem; and, still to waft them the
more swiftly to their home, fifty long oars, pulled well and
strongly by as many nervous arms, glanced in the liquid swell.
The bubbles on the surface were scarcely seen as they flashed
by, so rapid was their course; and a long wake of boiling foam
glanced in the moonshine, till it was lost to sight in the far distance.
The port was far behind them; and the king's ship,
seen faintly on the glimmering horizon, loomed like a pile of
vapor far on their starboard bow. And still the music rang
upon the favorable wind, and still the rowers sang amid their
toil, and still the captain sent the deep bowl round. The helmsman
dozed upon the tiller — the watch upon the forecastle had
long since stretched themselves upon the deck — in the deep
slumbers of exhaustion and satiety.

“Give way! my merry men, give way!” such was the jovial
captain's cry; “pull for the pride of Normandy — pull for your
country's fame, men of the fair Cotentin. What! will ye let
yon island-lubbers outstrip ye in the race? More way! more
way!”

And with unrivalled speed the Blanche Navire sped on. A
long black line stretches before her bow, dotting the silvery
surface with ragged and fantastic shades; but not one eye has
marked it! On she goes, swifter yet and swifter, and still the
fatal shout is ringing from her decks: “Give way, men of Cotentin!
give more way!” Now they are close upon it, and
now the dashing of the surf about the broken ledges — for that

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black line is the dread Raz de Gatteville, the most tremendous
reef of all that bar the iron coast of Normandy! The hoarse
and hollow roar must reach the ears even of those who sleep.
But no! the clangor of the exulting trumpets, and the deep
booming of the Norman nakir, and that ill-omened shout, “Give
way — yet more — more way!” has drowned even the all-pervading
roar of the wild breakers. On, on she goes, fleet as the
gazehound darting upon its antlered prey; and now her bows
are bathed by the upflashing spray; and now — hark to that
hollow shock, that long and grinding crash! — hark to that wild
and agonizing yell sent upward by two hundred youthful voices,
up to the glorious stars that smiled as if in mockery of their
ruin. There rang the voice of the strong, fearless men; the
knight who had spurred oft his destrier amid the shivering of
lances and the reading clash of blades, without a thought unless
of high excitement and fierce joy; the mariner who, undismayed,
had reefed his sail, and steered his bark aright, amid
the wildest storm that ever lashed the sea to fury — now utterly
unnerved and paralyzed by the appalling change from mirth
and revelry to imminent and instant death.

So furious was the rate at which the galley was propelled,
that, when she struck upon the sharp and jagged rocks, her
prow was utterly stove inward, and the strong tide rushed in,
foaming and roaring like a mill-stream! Ten seconds' space
she hung upon the perilous ledge, while the waves made a
clear breach over her, sweeping not only every living being,
but every fixture — spars, bulwars, shrouds, and the tall masts
themselves — from her devoted decks. At the first shock, with
the instinctive readiness that characterizes, in whatever peril,
the true mariner, Fitz-Stephen, rallying to his aid a dozen of
the bravest of his men, had cleared away and launched a boat;
and, even as the fated bark went down, bodily sucked into the
whirling surf, had seized the prince and dragged him with a

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stalwart arm into the little skiff, which had put off at once, to
shun the drowning hundreds who must have crowded in and
sunk her on the instant.

“Pull back! — God's death! — pull back!” cried the impetuous
youth, as he looked round and saw that he alone of all his
race was there; “pull back, ye dastard slaves, or by the Lord
and Maker of us all, though ye escape the waves, ye 'scape
not my revenge!” — and, as he spoke, he whirled his weapon
from the scabbard and pressed the point so closely to Fitz-Stephen's
throat, that its keen temper razed the skin; and, terrified
by his fierce menaces, and yet more by the resolute expression
that glanced forth from his whole countenance, they
turned her head once more toward the reef, and shot into the
vortex, agitated yet and boiling, wherein the hapless galley had
been swallowed. A female head, with long, fair hair, rose
close beside the shallop's stern, above the turbulent foam. William
bent forward: he had already clutched those golden tresses—
a moment, and she would have been enfolded in his arms—
another head rose suddenly! another — and another — and
another! Twenty strong hands grappled the gunwale of the
skiff with the tenacity of desperation. There was a struggle,
a loud shout, a heavy plunge, and the last remnant of the Blanche
Navire went down, actually dragged from beneath the few survivors
by the despairing hands of those whom she could not
have saved or succored had she been of ten times her burden.

All, all went down! There was a long and awful pause,
and then a slight splash broke the silence, a faint and gurgling
sigh, and a strong swimmer rose and shook the brine from his
dark locks; and lo, he was alone upon the deep! Something
he saw at a brief distance, distinct and dark, floating upon the
surface, and with a vigorous stroke he neared it — a fragment
of a broken spar. Hope quickened at his heart, and love of life,
almost forgotten in the immediate agony and terror, returned

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in all its natural strength. He seized a rope, and by its aid
reared himself out of the abyss; and now he sat, securely as he
deemed it, upon a floating fragment on which, one little hour
before, he would not have embarked for all the wealth of India.
Scarcely had he reached his temporary place of safety, before
another of the sufferers swam feebly up and joined him, and
then a third, the last of the survivors. The first who reached
the spar — it was no other than Fitz-Stephen — had perused
with an anxiety the most sickening and painful the faces of the
new-comers: he knew them, but they were not the features he
would have given his own life to see in safety — Berault, a
butcher of Rouen, and Godfrey, a renowned and gallant youth,
the son of Gilbert, count de L'Aigle. “The prince — where is
the prince?” Fitz-Stephen cried to each, as he arrived; “hast
thou not seen the prince?” And each, in turn, replied: “He
never rose again — he, nor his brothers, nor his sister, nor his
bride, nor one of all their company!” — “Wo be to me!” Fitz-Stephen
cried, and letting go his hold, deliberately sank into
the whirling waters; and, though a strong man and an active
swimmer, chose to die with the victims whom his rashness had
destroyed, rather than meet the indignation of their bereaved
father, and bear the agonies of his own lifelong remorse.

Three days elapsed before the tidings reached King Henry,
who in the fearful misery of hope deferred had lingered on the
beach, trusting to hear that, from some unknown cause, the galley
of his son might have put back to Barfleur. On the third
day, Berault, the sole survivor of that night of misery, was
brought in by a fishing-boat which had preserved him; and,
when he had concluded his narration, Robert of Normandy had
been revenged, although his wrongs had been a hundred-fold
more flagrant than they were. Henry, though he lived years,
NEVER SMILED AGAIN!

p582-090

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There are times in England when the merry month of May
is not, as it would now appear, merely a poet's fiction; when
the air is indeed mild and balmy, and the more conspicuously
so, that it succeeds the furious gusts and driving hailstorms of
the boisterous March, the fickle sunshine and capricious rains
of April. One of these singular epochs in the history of weather
it was in which events occurred, which remained unforgotten
for many a day, in the green wilds of Charnwood forest.

It was upon a soft, sweet morning, toward the latter end of
the month, and surely nothing more delicious could have been
conceived by the fancy of the poet. The low west wind was
fanning itself among the tender leaves of the new-budded trees,
and stealing over the deep meadows, all redolent with dewy
wild flowers, waving them with a gentle motion, and borrowing
a thousand perfumes from their bosoms. The hedgerows were
as white with the dense blossoms of the hawthorn as though
they had been powdered over by an untimely snowstorm; while
everywhere along the wooded banks the saffron primrose and
its sweet sister of the spring, the violet, were sunning their
unnumbered blossoms in the calm warmth of the vernal sunshine.
The heavens, of a pure, transparent blue, were laughing
with a genial lustre, not flooded by the dazzling glare of

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midsummer, but pouring over all beneath their influence a lovely,
gentle light, in perfect keeping with the style of the young
scenery; and all the air was literally vocal with the notes of
innumerable birds, from the proud lark, “rejoicing at heaven's
gate,” to the thrush and blackbird, trilling their full, rich chants
from every dingle, and the poor linnet, piping on the spray.
Nothing — no, nothing — can be imagined that so delights the
fancy with sweet visions, that so enthrals the senses, shedding
its influences even upon the secret heart, as a soft, old-fashioned
May morning. Apart from the mere beauties of the
scenery — from the mere enjoyment of the bright skies, the
dewy perfumes that float on every breeze, the mild, unscorching
warmth — apart from all these, there is something of a
deeper and a higher nature in the thoughts called forth by the
spirit of the time; a looking forward of the soul to fairer things
to come; an excitement of a quiet hope within, not very definite,
perhaps, nor easily explained, but one which almost every
man has felt, and contrasted with the languid and pallid satiety
produced by the full heat of summer, and yet more with the
sober and reflective sadness that steals upon the mind as we
survey the russet hues and the sere leaves of autumn. It is as
if the newness, the fresh youth of the season, gave birth to a
corresponding youth of the soul. Such are the sentiments
which many men feel now-a-days, besides the painter, and the
poet, and the soul-rapt enthusiast of nature: but those were
iron days of which we write, and men spared little time in
thought from action or from strife, nor often paused to note
their own sensations, much less to ponder on their origin or to
investigate their causes.

The morning was such as we have described — the scene a
spot of singular beauty within the precincts of the then-royal
forest of Charnwood, in Leicestershire. A deep but narrow
stream wound in a hundred graceful turns through the rich

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meadow-land that formed the bottom of a small, sloping vale,
which had been partially reclaimed, even at that day, from the
waste; though many a willow-bush fringing its margin, and
many a waving ash, fluttering its delicate tresses in the air,
betrayed the woodland origin of the soft meadow. A narrow
road swept down the hill, with a course little less serpentine
than that of the river below, and crossed it by a small, one-arched
stone bridge, overshadowed by a gigantic oak-tree, and
scaled the opposite acclivity in two or three sharp, sandy zig-zags.
Both the hillsides were clothed with forest, but still the
nature of the soil or some accidental causes had rendered the
wood as different as possible; for, on the farther side of the
stream, the ground was everywhere visibly covered by a short,
mossy turf, softer and more elastic to the foot than the most
exquisite carpet that ever issued from the looms of Persia, and
overshadowed by huge and scattered oaks, growing so far apart
that the eye could range far between their shadowy vistas;
while on the nearer slope — the foreground, as it might be
called, of the picture — all was a dense and confused mass of
tangled shrubbery and verdure. Thickets of old, gnarled thorn-bushes,
completely overrun and matted with woodbines; coppices
of young ash, with hazel interspersed, and eglantine and
dog-roses thickly set between; clumps of the prickly gorse
and plumelike broom, all starry with their golden flowerets, and
fern so wildly luxuriant, that in many places it would have
concealed the head of the tallest man, covered the ground for
many a mile through which the narrow road meandered.

There was one object more in view — one which spoke of
man even in that solitude, and man in his better aspect. It was
the slated roof and belfry, all overgrown with moss and stonecrop,
of a small wayside chapel, in the old Saxon architecture,
peering out from the shadows of the tall oaks which overhung
it in the far distance. It was, as we have said, very small, in

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the old Saxon architecture, consisting, in fact, merely of a
vaulted roof supported upon four squat, massy columns, whence
sprung the four groined ribs which met in the centre of the
arch. Three sides alone of this primitive place of worship,
which would have contained with difficulty forty persons, were
walled in, the front presenting one wide, open arch, richly and
quaintly sculptured with the indented wolf's teeth of the first
Saxon style. Small as it was, however, the little chapel had
its high altar, with the crucifix and candle, its reading-desk of
old black oak, its font, and pix, and chalices, and all the adjuncts
of the Roman ritual. A little way to the left might be
discovered the low, thatched eaves of a rustic cottage, framed
of the unbarked stems of forest-trees — the abode, probably, of
the officiating priest; and close beside the walls of the little
church a consecrated well, protected from the sun by a stone
vault, of architecture corresponding to the chapel.

Upon the nearer slope, not far from the roadside, but entirely
concealed from passers by the nature of the ground and the
dense thickets, there were collected, at an early hour of the
morning, five men, with as many horses, who seemed to be
awaiting, in a sort of ambush, some persons whom they would
attack at unawares. The leader of the party, as he might be
considered, as much from his appearance as from the deference
shown to him by the others, was a tall, active, powerful man,
of thirty-eight or forty years, with a bold and expressive countenance—
expressive, however, of no good quality, unless it
were the fiery, reckless daring which blazed from his broad,
dark eye, and that was almost obscured by the cloud of insufferable
pride which lowered upon his frowning brow, and by
the deep, scar-like lines of lust, and cruelty, and scorn, which
ploughed his weather-beaten features. His dress was a complete
suit of linked chain-mail — hauberk, and sleeves, and hose—
with shoes of plaited steel, and gauntlets wrought in scale,

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covering his person from his neck downward in impenetrable
armor. He had large gilded spurs buckled upon his heels, and
a long, two edged dagger, with a rich hilt and scabbard, in his
belt; but neither sword, nor lance, nor any other weapon of
offence, except a huge steel mace, heavy enough to fell an ox
at a single blow, which he grasped in his right hand; while
from his left hung the bridle of a tall, coal-black Norman charger,
which was cropping the grass quietly beside him. His
head was covered by a conical steel cap, with neither crest, nor
plume, nor visor, and mail-hood falling down from it to protect
the neck and shoulders of the wearer.

The other four were men-at-arms, clad all in suits of armor,
but less completely than their lord: thus they had steel shirts
only, with stout buff breeches and heavy boots to guard their
lower limbs, and iron skullcaps only, without the hood, upon
their heads, and leather gauntlets upon their hands; but, as if
to make up for this deficiency, they were positively loaded with
offensive weapons. They had the long, two-handed sword of
the period belted across their persons, three or four knives and
daggers of various size and strength at their girdles, great
battle-axes in their hands, and maces hanging at their saddle-bows.
They had been tarrying there already several hours,
their leader raising his eyes occasionally to mark the progress
of the sun as he climbed up the azure vault, and muttering a
brief and bitter curse as hour passed after hour, and those came
not whom he expected.

“Danian,” he said at length, turning to the principal of his
followers, who stood nearer to his person, and a little way
apart from the others — “Danian, art sure this was the place
and day? How the dog Saxons tarry! Can they have learned
our purpose?”

“Surely not, surely not, fair sir,” returned the squire, “seeing
that I have mentioned it to no one, not even to Raoul, or

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Americ, or Guy, who know no more than their own battle-axes
the object of their ambush. And it was pitch-dark when we
left the castle, and not a soul has seen us here; so it is quite
impossible they should suspect — and hark! there goes the bell;
and see, sir, see — there they come, trooping through the oak-trees
down the hill!”

And indeed, as he spoke, the single bell of the small chapel
began to chime with the merry notes that proclaim a bridal,
and a gay train of harmless, happy villagers might be seen, as
they flocked along, following the footsteps of the gray-headed
Saxon monk, who, in his frock and cowl, with corded waist
and sandalled feet, led the procession. Six young girls followed
close behind him, dressed in blue skirts and russet jerkins,
but crowned with garlands of white May-flowers, and
May-wreaths wound like scarfs across their swelling bosoms,
and hawthorn-branches in their hands, singing the bridal carol
in the old Saxon tongue, in honor of the pride of the village,
the young and lovely Marian. She was indeed the very personification
of all the poet's dreams of youthful beauty — tall
and slender in her figure, yet exquisitely, voluptuously rounded
in every perfect outline, with a waist of a span's circumference,
wide, sloping shoulders, and a bust that, for its matchless swell,
as it struggled and throbbed with a thousand soft emotions, threatening
to burst from the confinement of her tight-fitting jacket,
would have put to shame the bosom of the Medicean Venus.
Her complexion, wherever the sun had not too warmly kissed
her beauties, was pure as the driven snow; while her large,
bright-blue eyes, red, laughing lip, and the luxuriant flood of
sunny, golden hair, which streamed down in wild, artless ringlets
to her waist, made her a creature for a prince's, or more, a
poet's adoration.

But neither prince nor poet was the god of that fair girl's
idolatry, but one of her own class, a Saxon youth, a peasant —

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nay, a serf — from his very cradle upward the born thrall of
Hugh de Mortemar, lord of the castle and the hamlet at its foot,
named, from its situation in the depths of Charnwood, Ashby in
the Forest. But there was now no graven collar about the
sturdy neck of the young Saxon, telling of a suffering servitude;
no dark shade of gloom in his full, glancing eye; no sullen
doggedness upon his lip: for he was that day, that glad
day, a freeman — a slave no longer — but free, free, by the gift
of his noble master; free as the wild bird that sung so loudly
in the forest; free as the liberal air that bore the carol to his
ears. His frock of forest-green and buskins of the untanned
deer-hide set off his muscular, symmetrical proportions, and
his close-curled, short auburn hair showed a well-turned and
shapely head. Behind this gay and happy pair came several
maids and young men, two-and-two; and after these, an old,
gray-headed man, the father of the bride — and leaning on his
arm an aged matron, the widowed mother of the enfranchised
bridegroom.

Merrily rang the gay, glad bells, and blithely swelled up the
bridal chorus as they collected on the little green before the
ancient arch, and slowly filed into the precincts of the forest
shrine; but very speedily their merriment was changed into
dismay and terror and despair, for scarcely had they passed
into the sacred building, before the knight, with his dark followers,
leaped into their saddles, and thundering down the hill
at a tremendous gallop, surrounded the chapel before the inmates
had even time to think of any danger. It was a strange,
wild contrast, the venerable priest within pronouncing even
then the nuptial blessing, and proclaiming over the bright
young pair the union made by God, which thenceforth no man
should dissever — the tearful happiness of the blushing bride,
the serious gladness of the stalwart husband, the kneeling peasantry,
the wreaths of innocent flowers; and at the gate, the

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stern, dark men-at-arms, with their scarred savage features,
and their gold-gleaming harness and raised weapons. A loud
shriek burst from the lips of the sweet girl, as, lifting her eyes
to the sudden clang and clatter that harbingered those dread
intruders, she saw and recognised upon the instant the fiercest
of the Norman tyrants — dreaded by all his neighbors far and
near, but most by the most virtuous and young and lovely —
the bold, bad baron of Maltravers. He bounded to the earth
as he reached the door, and three of his followers leaped from
their horses likewise, one sitting motionless in his war-saddle,
and holding the four chargers. “Hold, priest!” he shouted,
as he entered, “forbear this mummery; and thou, dog Saxon,
think not that charms like these are destined to be clasped in
rapture by any arms of thy slow, slavish race!” and with these
words he strode up to the altar, seemingly fearless of the least
resistance, while his men kept the door with brandished weapons.
Mute terror seized on all, paralyzed utterly by the dread
interruption — on all but the bold priest and the stout bridegroom.

“Nay, rather forbear thou, Alberic de Maltravers! These
two are one for ever — wo be to those who part them!”

“Tush, priest — tush, fool!” sneered the fierce baron, as he
seized him by the arm, and swinging him back rudely, advanced
upon the terrified and weeping girl, who was now clinging to
the very rails of the high altar, trusting, poor wretch, that some
respect for that sanctity of place which in old times had awed
even heathens, might now prevail with one whom no respect
for anything divine or human had ever yet deterred from doing
his unholy will.

“Ha! dog!” cried he, in fiercer tones, that filled the chapel
as it were a trumpet, seeing the Saxon bridegroom lift up a
heavy quarter-staff which lay beside him, and step in quietly
but very resolutely in defence of his lovely wife — “Ha! dog

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and slave, dare you resist a Norman and a noble? — back,
serf, or die the death!” and he raised his huge mace to strike
him.

“No serf, sir, nor slave either,” answered the Saxon,
firmly, “but a freeman, by my good master's gift, and a landholder.”

“Well, master freeman and landholder,” replied the other,
with a bitter sneer, “if such names please you better, stand
back — for Marian lies on no bed but mine this night — stand
back, before worse come of it!”

“I will die rather,” was the answer. — “Then die! fool!
die!” shouted the furious Norman, and with the words he struck
full at the bare brow of the dauntless Saxon with his tremendous
mace — it fell, and with dint that would have crushed the
strongest helmet into a thousand splinters — it fell, but by a
dexterous slight the yeoman swung his quarter-staff across the
blow, and parried its direction, although the tough ash-pole
burst into fifty shivers — it fell upon the carved rails of the
altar and smashed them into atoms; but while the knight, who
had been somewhat staggered by the impetus of his own misdirected
blow, was striving to recover himself, the young man
sprang upon him, and grappling him by the throat, gained a
short-lived advantage. Short-lived it was indeed, and perilous
to him that gained — for although there were men enough in
the chapel, all armed with quarter staves, and one or two with
the genuine brown bill, to have overpowered the four Normans,
despite their war array — yet so completely were they overcome
by consternation, that not one moved a step to aid him;
the priest, who had alone showed any spark of courage,
being impeded by the shrieking women, who, clinging to the
hem of his vestments, implored him for the love of God to
save them.

In an instant that fierce grapple was at an end, for in the

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twinkling of an eye, two of the men-at-arms had rushed upon
him and dragged him off their lord.

“Now by the splendor of God's brow,” shouted the enraged
knight, “thou art a sweet dog thus to brave thy masters. Nay,
harm him not. Raoul” — he went on — “harm not the poor dog,”—
as his follower had raised his battle-axe to brain him —
“harm him not, else we should raise the ire of that fool, Mortemar!
Drag him out — tie him to the nearest tree, and this
good priest beside him — before his eyes we will console this
fair one.” And with these words he seized the trembling
girl, forcing her from the altar, and encircling her slender
waist in the foul clasp of his licentious arms. “And ye,”
he went on, lashing himself into fury as he continued, —
“and ye churl Saxons, hence! — hence dogs and harlots to
your kennels!”

No farther words were needed, for his orders were obeyed
by his own men with the speed of light, and the Saxons over-joyed
to escape on any terms, rushed in a confused mass out
of the desecrated shrine, and fled in all directions, fearful of
farther outrage. Meanwhile, despite the struggles of the
youth, and the excommunicating auathemas which the priest
showered upon their heads, the men-at-arms bound them
securely to the oak-trees, and then mounting their horses, sat
laughing at their impotent resistance, while with a refinement
of brutality worthy of actual fiends, Alberic de Maltravers bore
the sweet wife clasped to his iron breast, up to the very face
of her outraged, helpless husband, and tearing open all her
jerkin, displayed to the broad light the whole of her white,
panting bosom, and poured from his foul, fiery lips a flood of
lustful kisses on her mouth, neck, and bosom, under the very
eyes of his tortured victim. To what new outrage he might
have next proceeded, must remain ever doubtful, for at this
very instant the long and mellow blast of a clearly-winded

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bugle came swelling through the forest succeeded by the bay of
several bloodhounds, and the loud, ringing gallop of many fast
approaching.

“Ha!” shouted he, “ten thousand curses on him! here
comes De Mortemar. Quick — quick — away! Here, Raoul,
take the girl, buckle her tight to your back with the sword-belt,
and give me your twohanded blade; I lost my mace in the
chapel! — That's right! quick! man — that's right — now, then,
be off — ride for your life — straight to the castle; we will
stop all pursuit. Fare thee well, sweet one, for a while — we
will conclude hereafter what we have now commenced so
fairly!”

And as he spoke, he also mounted his strong charger, and
while the man, Raoul, dashed his spurs rowel-deep into his
horse's flanks, and went off at a thundering gallop, the other
four followed him at a slower pace, leaving the Saxons in redoubled
anguish — redoubled by the near hope of rescue.

But for once villany was not permitted to escape due retribution,
for ere the men-at-arms, who led the flight, had crossed
the little bridge, a gallant train came up at a light canter from
the wood, twenty or thirty archers, all with their long bows
bent, and their arrows notched and ready, with twice as many
foresters on foot, with hounds of every kind, in slips and leashes,
and at their head a man of as noble presence as ever graced a
court or reined a charger. He was clad in a plain hunting-frock
of forest-green, with a black velvet bonnet and a heron's
plume, and wore no other weapon but a light hunting-sword —
but close behind him rode two pages, bearing his knightly
lance with its long pennon, his blazoned shield, and his two-handed
broadsword. It was that brave and noble Norman, Sir
Hugh de Mortemar. His quick eye in an instant took in the
whole of the confused scene before him, and understood it on
the instant.

[figure description] Page 096.[end figure description]

“Alberic de Maltravers!” he cried, in a voice clear and loud
as the call of a silver trumpet, “before God he shall rue it,”
and with the words he snatched his lance from the page, and
dashing spurs into his splendid Spanish charger, thundered his
orders out with the rapid rush of a winter's torrent. “Bend
your bows, archers, — draw home your arrows to the head!
stand, thou foul ravisher, dishonest Norman, false gentleman,
and recreant knight! Stand on the instant, or we shoot! Cut
loose the yeoman from the tree, ye varlets, and the good priest.
Randal, cast loose the bloodhounds down to the bridge across
yon knoll, and lay them on the track of that flying scoundrel.
Ha! they will meet us.”

And so in truth they did; for seeing that he could not escape
the deadly archery, Alberic de Maltravers wheeled short on
his pursuers, and shouted his war-cry — “Saint Paul for Alberic! —
false knight and liar in your throat. Saint Paul! Saint
Paul! charge home,” — and with the words the steel-clad men-at-arms
drove on, expecting by the weight of their harness to
ride down and scatter the light archery like chaff. Unarmed
although he was, De Mortemar paused not — for a moment!—
but galloped in his green doublet as gallantly upon his foe
as though he had been sheathed in steel. He had but one advantage—
but one hope! — to bear his iron-clad opponent down
at the lance point, without closing — on! they came, on! —
Maltravers swinging his twohanded sword aloft, and trusting in
his mail to turn the lance's point — De Mortemar with his long
spear in rest — “Saint Paul! Saint Paul!” — they met! the dust
surged up in a dense cloud! the very earth appeared to shake
beneath their feet! — but not a moment was the conflict doubtful.
Deep! deep! throughed his linked mail, and through his
leathern jerkin, and through his writhing flesh, the grinded
spear-head shove into his bosom, and came out at his back, the
ash-staff breaking in the wound. Down he went, horse and

[figure description] Page 097.[end figure description]

man! — and down, at one close volley of the gray goose shafts,
down went his three companions! — one shot clear through the
brain by an unerring shaft — the others stunned and bruised,
their horses both slain under them. “Secure them,” shouted
Hugh, “bind them both hand and foot, and follow,” — and he
paused not to look upon his slain assailant, but galloped down
the hill, followed by half his train, the bloodhounds giving
tongue fiercely, and already gaining on the fugitive. It was a
fearful race, but quickly over! — for though the man-at-arms
spurred desperately on, his heavy Norman horse, oppressed,
moreover, by his double load, had not a chance in competing
with the proud Andalusian of De Mortemar. Desperately he
spurred on — but now the savage hounds were up with him —
they rushed full at the horse's throat and bore him to the earth—
another moment, Raoul was a bound captive, and Marian,
rescued by her liege lord, and wrapped in his own mantle, was
clasped in the fond arms of her husband!

“How now, good priest,” exclaimed Sir Hugh, “are these
two now fast wedded?”

“As fast, fair sire, as the holy rites may wed them.”

“Then ring me, thou knave, Ringan, a death-peal! Thou,
Gilbert, and thou, Launcelot, make me three halters, quick —
nay! four — the dead knight shall swing, as his villany well
merits, beside the living knaves! — Sing me a death-chant,
priest, for these are judged to death, unhouselled and unshriven!”

Not a word did the ruffians answer, they knew that prayer
was useless, and with dark frowning brows, and dauntless bearing,
they met their fate, impenitent and fearless. For Marian
begged their lives in vain. De Mortemar was pitiless in his
just wrath! And the spurs were hacked from the heels of the
dead knight, and the base halter twisted round his cold neck,
and his dishonored corpse hung up upon the very tree to which

[figure description] Page 098.[end figure description]

he had bade bind the Saxon bridegroom. And the death-peals
were sung, and the death-hymn was chanted; and ere the
sounds of either had died away in the forest echoes, the three
marauders writhed out their villain souls in the mild air, and
swung three grim and ghastly monuments of a foul crime and
fearful retribution — and this dread rite consummated the Saxon's
bridal!

p582-104 LEGENDS OF THE CRUSADERS.

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p582-106

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There is something in the first approach of spring — in
the budding of the young leaves, the freshness of the genial
atmosphere, the songs of the small birds, the increasing warmth
and lustre of the sun — as contrasted with the gloomy winter
which has just departed, that can not fail to awaken ideas of
a gay and lively character in all hearts accessible to the influences
of gratitude and love. In compliance, as it were, with
this feeling, a custom has more or less generally prevailed
among all nations, and in all ages, of celebrating the arrival of
this season by merriment, and song, and rural triumph. Like
many others, admirable practices of the olden time, the setting
apart to joy and innocent festivity of the first of May is now
gradually falling into neglect; but at the period of which we
are about to treat, not Christmas itself could be observed with
more reverential care than its inviting rival. On May-day, the
evergreens which had decked the cottage and the church, the

[figure description] Page 102.[end figure description]

castle and the cloister, gave way to garlands of such flowers as
the mellowing influences of the season had already called into
their existence of beauty and perfume; troops of morris-dancers
paraded the public way with their fantastic dresses, glittering
blades, and intricate evolutions; feasting and wassail, without
which even pleasure itself was then deemed incomplete, prevailed
on every side; in the crowded city, or in the secluded
valley; in the hut of the serf, or in the turreted keep of his
warlike lord; in the gloom of the convent, or in the glitter of
the court, the same feelings were excited, the same animation
glowed in every countenance, the same triumphant demonstrations
of joy hailed the glad harbinger of sunshine and of summer.

In England, above all other lands — the merry England of
antiquity — was this pleasing festival peculiarly dear to all
classes of society; at all times a period eagerly anticipated,
and rapturously enjoyed, never perhaps was its arrival celebrated
by all men with wilder revelry, with more enthusiastic happiness,
than on the year which had accomplished the deliverance
of their lion-hearted monarch from the chains of perfidious
Austria. It seemed to the whole nation as though, not
only the actual winter of the year, with his dark accompaniments
of snow and storm, but the yet more oppressive winter
of anarchy and misrule, of usurpation and tyranny, were about
to pass away from the people, which had so long groaned under
the griping sway of the bad John, or been torn by the savage
strife of his mercenary barons; while their legitimate and honored
sovereign was dragging his dreary hours along in the dungeon,
from which he had but now escaped, through the devoted
fidelity and unrivalled art of the minstrel Blondel.

Now, however, the king was on the throne of his fathers,
girt with a circle of three gallant spirits, who had shed their
blood like water on the thirsty deserts of Syria; earning not

[figure description] Page 103.[end figure description]

only earthly honor and renown, but, as their imperfect faith
had taught them to believe, the far more lofty guerdon of eternal
life. Now their national festival had returned — they were
called upon by the thousand voices of nature to give the rein to
Pleasure, and why should they turn a deaf ear to her inspiring
call?

The streets of London — widely different indeed from the
vast wilderness of walls, which has risen like a phœnix from
the ashes of its predecessor, but even at that early age a vast
and flourishing town — were thronged, from the earliest dawn,
by a constant succession of smiling faces: old and young, men
and maidens, grave citizens and stern soldiers, all yielding to
the excitement of the moment, all hurrying from the intricate
lanes of the city to greet their king, who had announced his
intention of holding a court at Westminster, and proceeding
thence, at high noon, to feast with the city dignitaries in Guildhall.
The open stalls, which then occupied the place of shops,
were adorned by a display of their richest wares, decorated
with wreaths of a thousand bright colors; — steel harness from
the forges of Milan; rich velvets from the looms of Genoa;
drinking-cups and ewers of embossed gold, glittered in every
booth. The projecting galleries, which thrust forward their irregular
gables far across the narrow streets, were hung with tapestries
of price; while garlands of flowers, stretched from side to
side, and the profusion of hawthorn boughs, with their light
green leaves and snowy blossoms, lent a sylvan appearance to
the crowded haunts of the metropolis. From space to space
the streets were guarded by the city-watch in their white cassocks
and glittering head-pieces; while ever and anon the
train of some great lord came winding its way, with led horses
in costly caparison, squires and pages in the most gorgeous fashion
of the day, the banner and the knightly armor of the baron
borne before him, from his lodgings in the Minories, or the more

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notorious Chepe. The air was literally alive with music and
light laughter; even the shaven and cowled monk, as he
threaded his way through the motley concourse — suffered the
gravity of his brow to relax into a smile when he looked upon
the undisguised delight of some fair girl, escorted by her trusty
bachelor; now stopping to gaze on the foreign curiosities displayed
in decorated stalls; now starting in affected terror from
the tramp and snort of the proud war-horse, or mustering a
frown of indignation at the unlicensed salutation of its courtly
rider; now laughing with unsuppressed glee at the strange
antics of the mummers and morricers, who, in every disguise
that fancy could suggest, danced and tumbled through the
crowded ways — heedless of the disturbance they excited, or
the danger they incurred from the hoofs of chargers which
were prancing along in constant succession, to display the
equestrian graces and firm seat of some young aspirant for the
honors of chivalry.

The whole scene was in the highest degree picturesque, and
such as no other age of the world could afford. The happiness
which, although fleeting and fictitious, threw its bright illumination
over the whole multitude, oblivious of the cares, the
labors, and the sorrows of to-morrow, afforded a subject for the
harp of the poet, no less worthy his inspired meditations than
the gorgeous coloring and the rich costume of the middle ages
might lend to the pencil of a Leslie or a Newton.

In a chamber overlooking with its Gothic casements this
scene of contagious mirth — alone, unmoved by the gay hum
which told of happiness in every passing breeze — borne down,
as it would appear, by the weight of some secret calamity —
sat Sir Gilbert à-Becket, of glorious form and unblemished
fame. The bravest of the brave on the battle-plain, unequalled
for wisdom in the hall of council, he had been among the first
of those bold hearts who had buckled on their mighty armor to

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fight the good fight of Christianity — to rear the cross above the
crescent — and to redeem the Savior's sepulchre from the contaminating
sway of the unbeliever.

There was not one among the gallant thousands who had
followed their lion-hearted leader from the green vales of England
to the sultry sands of Palestine, whose high qualities had
been more frequently tried, or whose undaunted valor was more
generally acknowledged, than the knight à-Becket; there was
not one to whose lance the chivalrous Richard looked more
confidently for support, nor one to whose counsel he more willingly
inclined his ear. In the last desperate effort before the
walls of Ascalon — when, with thirty knights alone, the English
monarch had defied the concentrated powers, and vainly
sought an opponent in the ranks of sixty thousand mussulmans—
his crest had shone the foremost in those fierce encounters
which have rendered the name of the Melec Ric a terror to
the tribes of the desert that has endured even to the present
day. It was at the close of this bloody encounter, that, conquered
by his own previous exertions rather than by the prowess
of his foemen — his armor hacked and rent, his war-steed slain
beneath him — he had been overwhelmed by numbers while
wielding his tremendous blade beside the bridle-rein of his
king, and borne away by the Saracens into hopeless captivity.

Days and months had rolled onward, and the limbs of the
champion were wasted and his constitution sapped by the vile
repose of the dungeon; yet never for an instant had his proud
demeanor altered, or his high spirit quailed beneath the prospect
of an endless slavery. All means had been resorted to
by his turbaned captors to induce him to adopt the creed of
Mohammed. Threat of torments such as was scarcely endured
even by the martyrs of old; promises of dominion, and wealth,
and honor; the agonies of thirst and hunger; the allurement
of beauty almost superhuman — had been brought to assail the

[figure description] Page 106.[end figure description]

faith of the despairing but undaunted prisoner: and each temptation
had been tried but to prove how unflinching was his resolution,
and how implicit his faith in that Rock of Ages which
he had ever served with enthusiastic, at least, if erring zeal,
and with a fervency of love which no peril could shake, no
pleasure could seduce from its serene fidelity.

At length, when hope itself was almost dead within his
breast; when ransom after ransom had been vainly offered;
when the noblest moslem captives had been tendered in exchange
for his inestimable head; and, to crown the whole,
when the no-longer united powers of the crusading league had
departed from the shores on which they had lavished so much
of their best blood — his deliverance from the fetters of the infidel
was accomplished by one of those extraordinary circumstances
which the world calls chance, but which the Christian
knows how to attribute to the infinite mercies of an overruling
Providence. The eagerness of the politic sultan — whose name
ranks as high among the tribes of Islam as the glory of his opponents
among the pale sons of Europe — to obtain proselytes
from the nations which he had the sagacity to perceive were
no less superior to the wandering hordes of the desert in arts
than in arms, had led him to break through those laws which
are so intimately connected with the religion of Mohammed —
the laws of the harem! As the pious faith of the western warrior
appeared to gain fresh vigor from every succeeding temptation,
so did the anxiety of his conqueror increase to gain over
to his cause a spirit the value of which was daily rendered
more and more conspicuous. In order to bring about this end,
after every other device had failed, he commanded the admission
to the Briton's cell of the fairest maiden of his harem — a
maid whose pure and spotless beauty went further to prove her
unblemished descent than even the titles which were assigned
to the youthful Leila, of almost royal birth.

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Dazzled by her charms, and intoxicated by the fascination
of her manner, her artless wit, and her delicate timidity, so far
removed from the unbridled passion of such other eastern beauties
as had visited his solitude, the Christian soldier betrayed
such evident delight in listening to her soft words, and such
keen anxiety for a repetition of the interview, that the oriental
monarch believed that he had in sooth prevailed. Confidently,
however, as he had calculated on the conversion of the believing
husband by the unbelieving wife, the bare possibility of an
opposite result had never once occurred to his distorted vision.
But truly has it been said, “Magna est veritas et prævalebit!”
The damsel who had been sent to create emotion in the breast
of another, was the first to become its victim herself: she whose
tutored tongue was to have won the prisoner from the faith of
his fathers, was herself the first to fall away from the creed of
her race. Enamored, beyond the reach of description, of the
good knight, whose attractions of person were no less superior
to the boasted beauty of the oriental nobles, than his rich and
enthusiastic mind soared above their prejudiced understandings,
she had surrendered her whole soul to a passion as intense as
the heat of her native climate; she had lent a willing ear to
the fervid eloquence of her beloved, and had drank in fresh
passion from the very language which had won her reason
from the debasing superstitions of Islamism to the bright and
everlasting splendors of the Christian faith. From this moment
the eastern maid became the bride of his affections, the solace
of his weary hours, the object of his brightest hopes. He had
discovered that she was worthy of his love; he was sure that
her whole being was devoted to his welfare; and he struggled
no longer aginst the spirit with which he had battled, as unworthy
his country, his name, and his religion.

It was not long ere the converted maiden had planned the
escape, and actually effected the deliverance, of her affianced

[figure description] Page 108.[end figure description]

lover. She had sworn to join him in his flight; she had promised
to accompany him to his distant country, and to be the star
of his ascendant destinies, as she had been the sole illuminator
to his hours of desolation and despair.

Rescued from his fetters, he had lain in concealment on the
rocky shores of the Mediterranean, anxiously awaiting the vessel
which was to convey him to the land of his birth, and her
whose society alone could render his being supportable. The
vessel arrived: but what was the agony of his soul on learning
that she whom he prized above light, and life, and all save virtue,
had fallen a sacrifice to the furious disappointment of her
indignant countrymen! Maddened with grief, and careless of
an existence which had now become a burden rather than a
treasure, he would have returned to avenge the wrongs of his
lost Leila, and perish on her grave, had not her emissaries —
conscious that in such a case the fate which had befallen the
mistress must undoubtedly be theirs likewise — compelled him
to secure their common safety by flight.

After weary wanderings, he had returned a heart-stricken
wretch to his native England, at that moment rejoicing with
unfeigned delight at the recovery of her heroic king. He
sometimes mingled in the labors of the council or the luxuries
of the banquet, but it was evident to all that his mind was far
away! that for him there might indeed be the external semblance
of joy, but that all within was dark and miserable! It
was plain that, in the words of the poet —

On this morning of universal joy — to him a period fraught
with the gloomiest recollections, for it was the anniversary of
that sad day on which he had parted from the idol of his heart,
never to behold her more! — on this morning he had secluded
himself from the sight of men; he was alone with his memory!

[figure description] Page 109.[end figure description]

His eyes indeed rested on the letters of an illuminated missal
which lay open before him; but the long, dark lock of silky
hair which was grasped in his feverish hand, showed too
plainly that his grief was still of that harrowing and fiery character
which prevents the mind from tasting as yet the consolations
of Divine truth. He had sat thus for hours, unconscious
of the passing multitude, whose every sound was borne to his
unheeding ears by the fresh breeze of spring. His courtly
robe and plumed bonnet, his collar, spurs, and sword, lay beside
him, arranged for the approaching festival by his officious
page; but no effort could have strung his nerves or hardened
his heart on that day to bear with the frivolous ceremonies and
false glitter of a court. He recked not now whether his presence
would lend a zest to the festival, or whether his absence
might be construed into offence. The warrior, the politician,
the man, were merged in the lover! Utter despondency had
fallen upon his spirit. Like the oak of his native forests, he
was proud and unchanged in appearance, but the worm was
busy at his heart. Even tears would have been a relief to the
dead weight of despair which had benumbed his very soul;
but never, since that fatal hour, had one drop relieved the
aching of his brain, or one smile gleamed across his haggard
features. Mechanically he fulfilled his part in society: he
moved, he spoke, he acted, like his fellow-men; but he was
now become, from the most ardent and impetuous of his kind,
a mere creature of habit and circumstance.

So deeply was he now absorbed in his dark reveries, that
the increasing clamor of the multitude had escaped his attention,
although the character of the sounds was no longer that
of unmingled pleasure. The voices of men, harsh and pitched
in an unnatural key, rude oaths, and tumultuous confusion, proclaimed
that, if not engaged in actual violence, the mob was at
least ripe for mischief. More than once, during the

[figure description] Page 110.[end figure description]

continuance of these turbulent sounds, had the plaintive accents of a
female voice been distinctly audible — when on a sudden a
shriek arose of such fearful import, close beneath the casements
of the abstracted baron, that it thrilled to his very heart. It
seemed to his excited fancy that the notes of a well-remembered
voice lent their music to that long-drawn cry; nay, he almost
imagined that his own name was indistinctly blended in that
yell of fear.

With the speed of light he had sprung to his feet, and hurried
to the lattice; but twice before he reached it, had the
cry repeated, calling on the name of “Gilbert!” with a plaintive
energy that could no longer be mistaken. He gained the
embrasure, dashed the trellised blinds apart, and there — struggling
in the licentious grasp of the retainers who ministered to
the brutal will of some haughty noble — her raven tresses scattered
to the winds of heaven, her turbaned shawl and flowing
caftan rent and disordered by the rude hands of lawless violence—
he beheld a female form of unrivalled symmetry, clad
in the well-remembered garments of the East. Her face was
turned from him, and the dark masses of hair which had escaped
from their confinement entirely concealed her features;
still there was an undefined resemblance which acted so keenly
upon his feelings, that the thunder of heaven could scarcely
burst with a more appalling crash above the heads of the guilty
than did the powerful tones of the crusader as he bade them,
“as they valued life, release the damsel!” With a rapid shudder
which ran through every limb at his clear summons, she
turned her head. It was — it was his own lost Leila! the high
and polished brow; the eyes that rivalled in languor the boasted
organs of the wild gazelle; the rapturous ecstasy that kindled
every lineament as she recognised her lover's form —


— “the voice that clove through all the din,
As a lute's pierceth through the cymbal's clash,
Jarred but not drowned by the loud brattling” —

[figure description] Page 111.[end figure description]

were all, all Leila's! To snatch his sword from its scabbard,
to vault at a single bound from the lofty casement, to force his
way through the disordered press, to level her audacious assailants
to the earth, was but a moment's work for the gigantic
power of the knight, animated as he now was by all those feelings
which can minister valor to the most timid, and give
strength to the feeblest arm! He beheld her whom he had
believed to be snatched for ever from his heart, nor could hundreds
of mail-clad soldiers have withstood his furious onset!
He had already clasped his recovered treasure in one nervous
arm, while with the other he brandished aloft the trusty blade,
which had so often carried havoc and terror to the centre of the
moslem lines; when the multitude, enraged at the interference
of a stranger with what to them appeared the laudable occupation
of persecuting a witch or infidel, seconded by the bold ruffians
who had first laid hand upon the lovely foreigner, rushed
bodily onward, threatening to overpower all resistance by the
weight of numbers.

Gallantly, however, and at the same time mercifully, did Sir
Gilbert à-Becket support his previous reputation. Dealing
sweeping blows with his huge falchion on every side, yet shunning
to use the point or edge, he had cleft his way in safety to
the threshold of his own door. Yet even then the final issue
of the strife was far from certain; for so sudden had been the
exit of the baron, and from so unusual an outlet, that none of
his household were conscious of their lord's absence, and the
massy portal was closed against the entrance of the lawful
owner. Stones and staves flew thick around him; and so
fiercely did the leaders of the furious mob press upon his retreat,
that, yielding at length to the dictates of his excited spirit,
he dealt the foremost a blow which would have cloven him to
the teeth though he had been fenced in triple steel; thundering
at the same time with his booted heel against the oaken

[figure description] Page 112.[end figure description]

leaves of his paternal gate, and shouting to page and squire
within till the vaulted passages rang forth in startled echoes.

At this critical moment the din of martial music, which had
long been approaching, heralded the royal procession; though
so actively were the rioters engaged in their desperate onset,
and so totally engrossed was the baron in the rescue of his recovered
bride, that neither party were aware of it until its
clangor rang close at hand, and a dazzling cavalcade of knights
and nobles came slowly on the scene of action.

Of stature almost gigantic, noble features, and kingly bearing—
his garb glittering with gold and jewels till the dazzled
eye could scarcely brook its splendor; backing a steed which
seemed as though its strength and spirit might have borne Goliath
to the field; and wielding a blade which no other arm in
Christendom could have poised even for a second — the lion-hearted
Richard, followed by every noble of his realm, dashed
with his native impetuosity into the centre.

“Ha! St. George!” he shouted, in a voice heard clearly
above the mingled clang of instruments and the tumult of the
conflict; “have ye no better way to keep our festival than thus
to take base odds on one? Shame on ye, vile recreants! What,
ho!” he cried, as he recognised the person of the knight, “our
good comrade à-Becket thus hard bestead! Hence to your
your kennels, ye curs of England! — dare ye match yourselves
against the Lion and his brood?”

Loud rang the acclamations of the throng, accustomed to the
blunt boldness of their warrior-king, and losing sight of his
haughty language in joy for his return and admiration of the
additional glory which had accrued to the whole nation from the
prowess of its champion: “God save thee, gallant lion-heart!
Never was so brave a knight! never so noble a king!”

Louder still was the wonder of the monarch and his assembled
court when they learned the strange adventure which had

[figure description] Page 113.[end figure description]

been brought to so fair a conclusion by their unexpected succor.
The lady threatened with the lasting indignation of the
royal Saladin, though never really in danger of life, had devised
the false report of her own death — knowing that it were hopeless
for her to dream of flight, so long as the eyes of all were
concentrated on her in dark and angry suspicion; and knowing
also that no dread of instant dissolution nor hope of liberty
could have induced her devoted lover to have quitted the land
while she remained in “durance vile.”

When the first excitement — caused by the escape of a prisoner
so highly esteemed as was the bold crusader — had ceased
to agitate the mussulman divan, and affairs had returned to
their usual course — easily escaping from the vigilance of the
haram guard, she had made good her flight to the seabathed
towers of Venice, and thence to the classic plains of Italy.
Then it was that the loneliness of her situation, the perils, the
toils, the miseries which she must necessarily endure, weighed
no less heavily on her tender spirits, than the unwonted labor
of so toilsome a journey on her delicate and youthful frame.
Ignorant of any European language, save the name of her lover,
and the metropolis of his far-distant country, her sole reply to
every query was the repetition, in her musical, although imperfect
accents, of the words — “London,” “Gilbert.” Marvellous
it is to relate — and were it not, in good sooth, history
too marvellous — that her talismanic speech did at length convey
her through nations hostile to her race, through the almost
uninhabited forest, and across the snowy barrier of the Alps,
through realms laid waste by relentless banditti, and cities
teeming with licentious and merciless adventurers, to the
chalky cliffs and verdant meadows of England! For weeks
had she wandered through the streets of the vast metropolis,
jeered by the cruel, and pitied, but unaided, by the merciful—
tempted by the wicked, and shunned by the

[figure description] Page 114.[end figure description]

virtuous — repeating ever and anon her simple exclamation, “Gilbert,
Gilbert!” till her strength was well nigh exhausted, and
her spirits were fast sinking into utter despondency and despair.

On the morning of the festival she had gone forth with hopes
renewed, when she perceived the concourse of nobles crowding
to greet their king — for she knew her Gilbert to be high
in rank and favor — and fervently did she trust that this day
would be the termination of her miseries. Again was she miserably
deceived; so miserably that, perchance, had not the
very assault which had threatened her with death or degradation
restored her, as it were by magic, to the arms of him whom
she had so tenderly and truly loved, she had sunk that night beneath
the pressure of grief and anxiety, too poignant to be long
endured. But so it was not ordained by that perfect Providence,
which, though it may for a time suffer bold vice to triumph, and
humble innocence to mourn, can ever bring real good out of
seeming evil; and whose judgments are so inevitably, in the end,
judgments of mercy and of truth, that well might the minstrel
king declare of old, in the inspired language of holy writ —

“I have been young, and now am old, yet have I not seen
the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.”

p582-120

[figure description] [Page 115].[end figure description]

A summer-day in Syria was rapidly drawing toward its
close, as a handful of European cavalry, easily recognised by
their flat-topped helmets, cumbrous hauberks, and chargers
sheathed like their riders, in plate and mail, were toiling their
weary way through the deep sand of the desert, scorched
almost to the heat of molten lead by the intolerable glare of an
eastern sun. Insignificant in numbers, but high of heart, confident
from repeated success, elated with enthusiastic valor,
and inspiriting sense of a holy cause, they followed the guidance
of their leader, one of the best and most tried lances of the
temple, careless whither, and secure of triumph; their steel
armor glowing like burnished gold, their lance-heads flashing
in the level rays of the setting orb, and the party-colored banner
of the Beauseant hanging motionless in the still atmosphere.

Before them lay an interminable waste of bare and dusty
plain, broken into long swells succeeding each other in monotonous
regularity, though occasionally varied by stunted patches
of thorny shrubs and dwarf palm-trees. As they wheeled round
one of these thickets, their commander halted suddenly at the

[figure description] Page 116.[end figure description]

sight of some fifty horsemen, whose fluttering garb and turbaned
crowns, as well as the springy pace of their Arab steeds,
proclaimed them natives of the soil, winding along the bottom
of the valley beneath him, with the stealthy silence of prowling
tigers. Although the enemy nearly trebled his own force
in numerical power, without a moment's hesitation Albert of
Vermandois arrayed his little band, and before the infidels had
even discovered his presence, much less drawn a blade, or concentrated
their scattered line, the dreaded war-cry rung upon
their ears — “Ha! Beauseant! for the temple! for the temple!”
and down thundered the irresistible charge of the western
crusaders on their unguarded flank. Not an instant did
the Saracens withstand the brunt of the Norman lance; they
broke away on all sides, leaving a score of their companions
stretched to rise no more on the bloody plain. Scarcely, however,
had the victors checked their blown horses, or reorganized
their phalanx, disordered by the hot struggle, when the
distant clang of cymbal, horn, and kettle-drum mingled with the
shrill lelies of the heathen sounding in every direction, announced
that their march had been anticipated, their route beset,
themselves surrounded. Hastily taking possession of the
vantage-ground afforded by an abrupt hillock, and dismissing
the lightest of his party to ride for life to the Christian camp,
and demand immediate aid, Albert awaited the onset with the
stern composure which springs from self-possession. A few
minutes sufficed to show the Christians the extent of their embarrassment,
and the imminence of their peril. Three heavy
masses of cavalry were approaching them from as many different
quarters; their gaudy turbans, gilded arms, and waving pennons
of a hundred hues, blazing in marked contrast to the stern
and martial simplicity of the iron soldiers of the west. To the
quick eye of Albert it was instantly evident that their hope consisted
in protracting the conflict till the arrival of succor; and

[figure description] Page 117.[end figure description]

even this hope was diminished by the unwonted velocity with
which the Mohammedans hurried to the attack. It seemed as
if they also were aware that, in order to conquer, they must
conquer quickly; for, contrary to their usual mode of fighting,
they charged resolutely upon the very lances of the motionless
Christians, who, in a solid circle, opposed their mailed breasts
in firm array to their volatile antagonists. Fiercely, however,
as they charged, their lighter coursers recoiled before the bone
and weight of the European war-steeds. The lances of the
crusaders were shivered in the onset; but to the thrust of these
succeeded the deadly sweep of the twohanded swords, flashing
above the cimeters of the infidel with the sway of some terrific
engine. Time after time the eastern warriors rushed on, time
after time they retreated, like the surf from some lonely rock
on which it has wasted its thunders in vain. At length they
changed their plan, and wheeling in rapid circles, poured their
arrows in as fast, and for a time as fruitlessly, as the snowstorm
of a December day. On they came again, right upon the
point where Vermandois was posted, headed by a tall chieftain,
distinguished no less by his gorgeous arms than by his gallant
bearing. Rising in his stirrups, when at a few paces distance,
he hurled his long javelin full in the face of the crusader.
Bending his crest to the saddle-bow, as the dart passed harmlessly
over him, Albert cast his massive battle-axe in return.
The tremendous missile rustled past the chief at whom it was
aimed, and smote his shield-bearer to the earth, at the very
moment when an arrow pierced the templar's charger through
the eyeball to the brain. The animal, frantic with the pain,
bounded forward and rolled lifeless, bearing his rider with him
to the ground; yet even in that last struggle the stern knight
clave the turbaned leader down to the teeth before he fell.
Five hundred horse dashed over him — his array was broken—
his companions were hewn from their saddles, even before

[figure description] Page 118.[end figure description]

their commander was snatched from beneath the trampling
hoofs, disarmed, fettered, and reserved for a doom to which the
fate of his comrades had been a boon of mercy. Satisfied with
their success, and aware that a few hours at the farthest must
bring up the rescue from the Christian army, the Saracens retreated
as rapidly as they had advanced; all night long they
travelled with unabated speed toward their inaccessible fastnesses,
in the recesses of their wild mountains. Arrived at
their encampment, the prisoner was cast into a dungeon hewn
from the living rock. Day after day rolled heavily on, and
Albert lay in utter darkness, ignorant of his destiny, unvisited
by any being except the swart and bearded savage who brought
the daily pittance, scarcely sufficient for the wants of his
wretched existence.

Albert of Vermandois, a Burgundian youth of high nobility,
and yet more exalted renown, had left his native land stung
almost to madness by the early death of her to whom he had
vowed his affections, and whose name he had already made
“glorious by his sword,” from the banks of the Danube to the
pillars of Hercules. He had bound the cross upon his breast,
he had mortified all worldly desires, all earthly passions, beneath
the strict rule of his order. While yet in the flush and
pride of manhood, before a gray hair had streaked his dark
locks, or a single line wrinkled his lofty brow, he had changed
his nature, his heart, his very being; he had attained a height
of dignity and fame scarcely equalled by the best and noblest
warriors of the temple. The vigor of his arm, the vast scope
of his political foresight, no less than the unimpeached rigor
of his morals, had long rendered him a glory to his brotherhood,
a cause of terror and an engine of defeat to the Saracen
lords of the Holy Land. Many a league had been formed to
overpower, many a dark plot hatched to inveigle him; but so
invariably had he borne down all odds in open warfare before

[figure description] Page 119.[end figure description]

his irresistable lance, so certainly had he hurled back all secret
treasons with redoubled vengeance on the heads of the
schemers, that he was almost deemed the possessor of some
cabalistic spell, framed for the downfall and destruction of the
sons of Islam.

Deep were the consultations of the infidel leaders concerning
the destiny of their formidable captive. The slaughter actually
wrought by his hand had been so fearful, the ravages
produced among their armies by his policy so unbounded, that
a large majority were in favor of his instant execution; nor
could human ingenuity devise, or brute cruelty perform, more
hellish methods of torture than were calmly discussed in that
infuriate assembly.

It was late on the third day of his captivity, when the hinges
of his dungeon-grate creaked, and a broader glare streamed
through the aperture than had hitherto disclosed the secrets of
his prisonhouse. The red light streamed from a lamp in the
grasp of a dark figure — an imaum, known by his high cap of
lambskin, his loose black robes, his parchment cincture, figured
with Arabic characters, and the long beard that flowed even
below his girdle in unrestrained luxuriance. A negro, bearing
food of a better quality, and the beverage abhorred by the prophet,
the forbidden juice of the grape, followed — his ivory teeth and
the livid circles of his eyes glittering with a ghastly whiteness
in the clear lamp-light. He arranged the unaccustomed dainties
on the rocky floor: the slave withdrew. The priest seated
himself so that the light should reveal every change of the
templar's features, while his own were veiled in deep shadow.

“Arise, young Nazarene,” he said, “arise and eat, for to-morrow
thou shalt die. Eat, drink, and let thy soul be strengthened
to bear thy doom; for as surely as there is one God, and
one prophet, which is Mohammed, so surely is the black wing
of Azrael outstretched above thee!”

[figure description] Page 120.[end figure description]

“It is well,” was the unmoved reply. “I am a consecrated
knight, and how should a templar tremble? — a Christian, and
how should a follower of Jesus fear to die?”

“My brother hath spoken wisely, yet is his wisdom but folly.
Truly hast thou said, `It is well to die;' for is it not written
that the faithful and the yaoor must alike go hence? But is it
the same thing for a warrior to fall amid the flutter of banners
and the flourish of trumpets — which are to the strong man
even as the breath of his nostrils, or as the mild shower in
seedtime to the thirsty plain — and to perish by inches afar from
his comrades, surrounded by tribes to whom the very name of
his race is a by-word and a scorn?”

“Now, by the blessed light of heaven!” cried the indignant
soldier, “rather shouldst thou say a terror and a ruin; for when
have the dogs endured the waving of our pennons or the flash
of our armor? But it skills not talking — leave me, priest, for
I abhor thy creed, as I despise thy loathsome impostor!”

For a short space the wise man of the tribes was silent; he
gazed intently on the countenance of his foeman, but not a sign
of wavering or dismay could his keen eye trace in the stern
and haughty features. “Allah Acbar,” he said at length; “to
God all things are possible: would the Christian live?”

“All men would live, and I am but a man,” returned the
knight; “yet, praise be to Him where all praise is due, I have
never shrunk from death in the field, nor can he fright me on
the scaffold. If my Master has need of his servant, he who
had power to deliver Israel from bondage, and Daniel from the
jaws of the lion, surely he shall deliver my soul from the power
of the dog. And if he has appointed for me the crown of martyrdom,
it shall ne'er be said that Albert of Vermandois was
deaf to the will of the God of battles and the Lord of hosts.”

“The wise man hath said,” replied the slow, musical notes
of the priest, in strange contrast to the fiery zeal of the

[figure description] Page 121.[end figure description]

prisoner — “the wise man hath said, `Better is the cottage that
standeth firm than the tower which tottereth to its fall.' Will
my brother hear reason? Cast away the cross from thy breast,
bind the turban upon thy brow, and behold thou shalt be as a
prince among our people!”

“Peace, blasphemer! I spit at thee — I despise, I defy thee!
I, a worshipper of the living Jehovah, shall I debase myself to
the camel-driver of Mecca? Peace! begone!” He turned
his face to the wall, folded his arms upon his chest, and was
silent. No entreaties, no threats of torment, no promises of
mercy, could induce him again to open his lips. His eyes
were fixed as if they beheld some shape, unseen by others;
his brow was calm, and, but for a slight expression of scorn
about the muscles of the mouth, he might have passed for a
visionary.

After a time, the imaum arose, quitted the cell, and the warrior
was again alone. But a harder trial was yet before him.
The door of his prison opened yet once more, and a form entered—
a being whom the poets in her own land of minstrelsey
would have described under the types of a young date-tree,
bowing its graceful head to the breath of evening; of a pure
spring in the burning desert; of a gazelle, bounding over the
unshaken herbage; of a dove, gliding on the wings of the morning!
And of a truth she was lovely: her jetty hair braided
above her transparent brow, and floating in a veil of curls over
her shoulders; her large eyes swimming in liquid languor;
and, above all, that indescribable charm —

“The mind, the music breathing from her face” —

“One of earth's least earthly daughters.”

[figure description] Page 122.[end figure description]

For a moment the templar gazed, as if he doubted whether
he were not looking upon one of those spirits which are said to
have assailed and almost shaken the sanctity of many a holy
anchorite. His heart, for the first time in many years, throbbed
wildly. He bowed his head between his knees, and prayed
fervently; nor did he again raise his eyes, till a voice, as harmonious
as the breathing of a lute, addressed him in the lingua-Franca:—

“If the sight of his hand-maiden is offensive to the eyes of
the Nazarene, she will depart as she came, in sorrow.”

The soldier lifted up his eyes, and saw her bending over him
with so sad an expression of tenderness, that, despite of himself,
his heart melted within him, and his answer was courteous
and even kind: “I thank thee, dear lady, I thank thee for thy
good will, though it can avail me nothing. But wherefore does
one so fair, and it may well be so happy as thou art, visit the
cell of a condemned captive?”

“Say not condemned — oh, say not condemned! Thy servant
is the bearer of life, and freedom, and honor. She saw
thy manly form, she looked upon thine undaunted demeanor,
and she loved thee — loved thee to distraction — would follow
thee to the ends of earth — would die to save thee — has already
saved thee, if thou wilt be saved! Rank, honor, life,
and love —”

“Lady,” he interrupted her, “listen! For ten long years I
have not lent my ear to the witchery of a woman's voice. Ten
years ago, I was the betrothed lover of a maid, I had well-nigh
said, as fair as thou art. She died — died, and left me desolate!
I have fled from my native land; I have devoted to my
God the feelings which I once cherished for your sex. I could
not give thee love in return for thy love; nor would I stoop to
feign that which I felt not, although it were to win, not temporal,
but eternal life.”

[figure description] Page 123.[end figure description]

“Oh! dismiss me not,” she sobbed, as she threw her white
arms around his neck, and panted on his bosom; “oh! dismiss
me not thus. I ask no vows; I ask no love. Be but mine;
let my country be your country, my God yours — and you are
safe and free!”

“My Master,” he replied coldly, as he disengaged her grasp,
and removed her from his arms, “hath said, `What would it
profit a man, if he should gain the whole world, and lose his
own soul?' I have listened to thee, lady, and I have answered
thee; but my heart is heavy — for it is mournful to see that so
glorious a form should be the habitation of so frail a spirit. I
pray thee, leave me! To-morrow I shall meet my God, and
I would commune with him now in spirit and in truth!”

Slowly she turned away, wrapped her face in her veil, and
moved with faltering steps — wailing as if her heart were about
to burst — through the low portal. The gate clanged heavily
as she departed; but the sounds of her lamentation were audible
long after the last being, who would show a sign of pity for
his woes, or of admiration for his merits, had gone forth, never
again to return!

All night long the devotions, the fervent and heartfelt prayers
of the crusader, ascended to the throne of his Master; and
often, though he struggled to suppress the feeling, a petition
for his lovely though deluded visiter was mingled with entreaties
for strength to bear the fate he anticipated.

Morning came at last, not as in frigid climates of the North—
creeping through its slow gradations of gray dawn and dappling
twilight — but bursting at once from night into perfect
day. The prison-gates were opened for the last time, the fetters
were struck off from the limbs of the undaunted captive,
and himself led forth like a victim to the sacrifice.

From leagues around, all the hordes of the desert had come
together, in swarms outnumbering the winged motes that stream

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like dusty atoms in every sunbeam. It was a strange, and,
under other circumstances, would have been a glorious spectacle.
In a vast sandy basin, surrounded on every side by low
but rugged eminences, were the swarthy sons of Syria mustered,
rank above rank, to feast their eyes on the unwonted
spectacle of a Christian's sufferings. The rude tribes of the
remotest regions, Arab and Turcoman, mounted on the uncouth
dromedary, or on steeds of matchless symmetry and unstained
pedigree, mingling their dark baracans with the brilliant arms
and gorgeous garbs of the sultan's court — even the unseen
beauties of a hundred harems watched from their canopied litters
the preparations for the execution with as much interest
and as little concern as the belles of our own day exhibit before
the curtain has been drawn aside which is to disclose the
performances of a Pedrotti or a Malibran to the enraptured
audience.

In the centre of this natural amphitheatre stood the scathed
and whitening trunk of a thunder-stricken palm. To this inartificial
stake was the captive led. One by one his garments
were torn asunder, till his muscular form and splendid proportions
were revealed in naked majesty to the wondering multitude.
Once, before he was attached to the fatal tree, a formal
offer of life, and liberty, and high office in the moslem court,
was tendered to him, on condition of his embracing the faith
of the prophet — and refused by one contemptuous motion of
his hand. He was bound firmly to the stump, with his hands
secured far above his head. At some fifty paces distant, stood
a group of dark and fierce warriors, with bended bows and
well-filled quivers, evidently awaiting the signal to pour in their
arrowy sleet upon his unguarded limbs. He gazed upon them
with a countenance unmoved and serene, though somewhat
paler than its usual tints. His eyes did not, however, long
dwell on the unattractive sight: he turned them upward, and

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his lips moved at intervals, though no sound was conveyed to
the ear of the bystanders.

Some minutes had elapsed thus, when the shrill voice of the
muezzin was heard, proclaiming the hour of matin-prayer in
his measured chant: “There is no God but God, and Mohammed
is his prophet!” In an instant the whole multitude were
prostrate in the dust, and motionless as though the fatal blast
of the simoom was careering through the tainted atmosphere.
A flash of contempt shot across the features of the templar, but
it quickly vanished in a more holy expression, as he muttered
to himself the words used on a far more memorable occasion,
by Divinity itself: “Forgive them, Lord; they know not what
they do!”

The pause was of short duration. With a rustle like the
voice of the forest when the first breath of the rising tempest
agitates its shivering foliage, the multitude rose to their feet.
A gallant horseman dashed from the cavalcade which thronged
around the person of their sultan, checked his steed beside the
archer-band, spoke a few hasty words, and galloped back to
his station.

Another minute — and arrow after arrow whistled from the
Paynim bows, piercing the limbs and even grazing the body
of the templar; but not a murmur escaped from the victim —
scarcely did a frown contract his brow. There was an irradiation,
as if of celestial happiness, upon his countenance; nor
could a spectator have imagined for a moment that his whole
frame was almost convulsed with agony, but for the weapons
quivering even to their feathered extremities in every joint,
and the large blood-drops trickling like rain upon the thirsty
soil!

Again there was a pause. Circled by his Nubian guard,
and followed by the bravest and the brightest of his court, the
sultan himself rode up to the bleeding crusader. Yet, even

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there, decked with all the pomp of royalty and pride of war,
goodly in person, and sublime in bearing, the monarch of the
East was shamed — shamed like a slave before his master —
by the native majesty of Christian virtue; nor could the prince
at first find words to address the tortured mortal who stood at
his feet with the serene deportment which would have beseemed
the judge upon his tribunal no less than the martyr at
the stake.

“Has the Nazarene yet learned experience from the bitter
sting of adversity? The skill of the leech may yet assuage
thy wounds, and the honors which shall be poured upon thee
may yet efface thine injuries — even as the rich grain conceals
in its luxuriance the furrows of the ploughshare! Will the
Nazarene live? or will he die the death of a dog?”

“The Lord is on my side,” was the low but firm reply —
“the Lord is on my side: I will not fear what man doeth unto
me!”

On swept the monarch's train, and again the iron shower
fell fast and fatally — not as before, on the members, but on the
broad chest and manly trunk. The blood gushed forth in
blacker streams; the warrior's life was ebbing fast away —
when from the rear of the broken hills a sudden trumpet blew
a point of war in notes so thrilling, that it pierced the ears like
the thrust of some sharp weapon. Before the astonishment of
the crowd had time to vent itself in word or deed, the eminences
were crowded with the mail-clad myriads of the Christian
forces! Down they came, like the blast of the tornado on
some frail and scattered fleet, with war-cry, and the clang of
instruments, and the thick trampling of twice ten thousand
hoofs. Wo to the sons of the desert in that hour! They were
swept away before the mettled steeds and levelled lances of the
templars like dust before the wind, or stubble before the devouring
flame!

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The eye of the dying hero lightened as he saw the banners
of his countrymen. His whole form dilated with exultation
and triumph. He tore his arm from its fetters, waved it around
his blood-stained forehead, and for the last time shouted forth
his cry of battle: “Ha! Beauseant! A Vermandois for the
temple!” Then, in a lower tone, he cried: “`Lord, now lettest
thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word;
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”' He bowed his head,
and his undaunted spirit passed away.

p582-133

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For well nigh two long years had the walls of Acre rung to
the war-cries and clashing arms of the contending myriads of
Christian and Mohammedan forces, while no real advantage
had resulted to either army, from the fierce and sanguinary
struggles that daily alarmed the apprehensions, or excited the
hopes of the besieged. The rocky heights of Carmel now
echoed to the flourish of the European trumpet, and now sent
back the wilder strains of the Arabian drum and cymbal. On the
one side were mustered the gigantic warriors of the western forests,
from the wild frontiers of Germany, and the shores of the
Baltic; while on the other were assembled the Moslems of
Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, the wandering tribes from the Tigris
to the banks of the Indus, and the swarthy hordes of the Mauritanian
desert. Not a day passed unnoted by some bloody
skirmish or pitched battle; — at one time the sultan forced his
way into the beleaguered city, and the next moment the crusaders
plundered the camp of the Mohammedan. As often
as by stress of weather the European fleet was driven from its

[figure description] Page 129.[end figure description]

blockading station, so often were fresh troops poured in to replace
the exhausted garrison; and as fast as the sword of the
infidel, or the unsparing pestilence, thinned the camp of the
crusaders, so fast was it replenished by fresh swarms of pilgrims,
burning with enthusiastic ardor, and aspiring to re-establish
the dominion of the Latin kings within the precincts of
the holy city.

Suddenly, however, the aspect of affairs was altered; a
change took place in the tactics of the paynim leaders — a
change which, in the space of a few weeks, wrought more
havoc in the lines of the invaders than months of open warfare.
The regular attacks of marshalled front and steady fighting,
wherein the light cavalry of the Turkish and Saracen tribes
invariably gave way before the tremendous charges of the steel-clad
knights, were exchanged for an incessant and harassing
war of outposts. Not a drop of water could be conveyed into
the Christian camp, unless purchased by a tenfold effusion of
noble blood; not a picket could be placed in advance of their
position, but it was inevitably surrounded and cut off; not a
messenger could be despatched to any Latin city, but he was
intercepted, and his intelligence rendered subservient to the
detriment and destruction of the inventors.

Nor was it long before the author of this new system was
discovered. In every affair a chieftain was observed, no less
remarkable for his powerful make, far exceeding the stature and
slight, though sinewy, frame of his oriental followers, than for
his skill in disposing his irregular horsemen, so as to act with
the greatest possible advantage against his formidable, but cumbrous
opponents. His arms and equipment, moreover, distinguished
him yet more clearly than his huge person from his
paynim coadjutors. His brows indeed were turbaned, but beneath
the embroidered shawl and glittering tiara he wore the
massive cerveilliere and barred vizor of the European headpiece;

[figure description] Page 130.[end figure description]

instead of the fluttering caftan and light hauberk, his whole form
was sheathed in solid mail; the steed which he bestrode showed
more bone and muscle than the swift but slender coursers of
the desert, and was armed on chest and croup with plates of
tempered steel. Nor, though he avoided to risk his light-armed
troops against their invulnerable opponents, did he himself
shrink from the encounter; on the contrary, ever leading the
attack and covering the retreat, it seemed his especial delight
to mingle hand to hand with the best lances of the temple.
Many a knight had fallen beneath the sweep of his tremendous
blade, and these not of the unknown and unregarded multitude;
for it was ever from among the noblest and the best that he
singled out his antagonists — his victims — for of all who had
gone against him, not one had been known to return. So
great was the annoyance wrought to the armies of the cross by
the policy, as well as by the valor of the moslem chief, that
every method had been contrived for overpowering him by
numbers, or deceiving him by stratagem; still the sagacity and
foresight of the infidel had penetrated their deep devices, with
a certainty as unerring as that with which his huge battle-axe
had cloven their proudest crests.

To such a pitch had the terror of his prowess extended, that
not content with the reality, in itself sufficiently gloomy, the
soldiers had begun to invest him with the attributes of a
superhuman avenger. It was observed, that save the gold
and crimson scarf which bound his iron temples, he was black
from head to heel-stirrup, and spur, and crest, the trappings of
his charger, and the animal itself, all dark as the raven's wing—
that, more than once since he had fought in the van of the
mussulmans, strange shouts had been heard ringing above the
lelies of the paynim, and repeating the hallowed war-cry of the
Christian in tones of hellish derision — once, too, when he had
utterly destroyed a little band of templars, a maimed and

[figure description] Page 131.[end figure description]

wounded wretch, who had escaped from the carnage of his
brethren, skulking beneath his lifeless horse, averred that,
while careering at his utmost speed, the charger of the mysterious
warrior had swerved in mad consternation from the
consecrated banner, which had been hurled to the earth, and
that the sullen head of the rider had involuntarily bowed to the
saddle-bow as he dashed onward in his course of blood and
ruin; and in truth there was enough of the marvellous — in the
activity by which he avoided all collision with a superior force,
and in the victories which he bore off day by day from the
men who, till he had come upon the stage, had only fought to
conquer — to palliate, if not to justify, some vague and shadowy
terrors, in an age when the truth of supernatural interference,
whether of saints or demons, was believed as implicitly as the
holy writ. Men, who a few weeks before would have gone
forth to battle against a threefold array of enemies rejoicing as
if to a banquet, now fought faintly, and began to look for safety
in a timely retreat, rather than in the deeds of their own right
hands, as soon as they beheld the sable form of that adversary,
whom all regarded as something more than a mere human foe;
while many believed, that if not a natural incarnation of the
evil principle, he was, at least, a mortal endowed with power
to work the mischief designed for his performance, by the inveterate
malignity of the arch-fiend himself. And it was a
fact, very characteristic of the period at which these events
occurred, that the most accomplished warriors of the time bestowed
as much attention on the framing of periapt, and spell,
and all the arms of spiritual war, as on their mere earthly
weapons, the spear, the buckler, and the steed.

The middle watch of night was long passed, and the sky
was overcast with heavy clouds — what little air was stirring
came in blasts as close and scorching as though they issued
from the mouth of an oven. The camp of the crusaders

[figure description] Page 132.[end figure description]

was silent, and sleeping, all but the vigilant guards, ever
on the alert to catch the faintest sound, which might portend a
sally from the walls of the city, or a surprise of the indefatigable
Saladin from without.

In the pavilion of Lusignan, the nominal leader of the expedition,
all the chiefs of the crusade had met in deep consultation.
But the debate was ended; one by one they had retired
to their respective quarters, and the Latin monarch was left
alone, to muse on the brighter prospects which were opening
to his ambition in the approach of Philip Augustus and the lion-hearted
Richard, at the head of such an array of gallant spirits
as might justify his most extravagant wishes. Suddenly his
musings were interrupted by sounds, remote at first, but gradually
thickening upon his ear. The faint blast of a distant
trumpet, and the challenge of sentries, was succeeded by the
hurried tramp of approaching footsteps; voices were heard in
eager and exulting conversation, and lights were seen marshalling
the new-comers to the royal tent. A few moments, and a
knot of his most distinguished knights stood before him, and,
with fettered hands, and his black armor soiled with dust and
blood, the mysterious warrior of the desert, a captive in the
presence of his conquerors.

The narration of the victory was brief. A foraging-party
had ridden forth on the preceding morning, never to return! —
for, instructed by his scouts, the infidel had beset their march,
had assaulted them at nightfall, and destroyed them to a man.
But his good fortune had at last deserted him. A heavy body
of knights, with their archers and sergeants, returning from a
distant excursion, had come suddenly upon his rear when he
was prosecuting his easy triumph. The moslems, finding themselves
abruptly compelled to act on the defensive, were seized
by one of those panics to which all night-attacks are so liable —
were thrown into confusion, routed, and cut to pieces. Their

[figure description] Page 133.[end figure description]

commander, on the first appearance of the Christians, had
charged with his wonted fury, before he perceived that he was
deserted by all, and surrounded past the hope of escape. Heretofore
he had fought for victory, now he fought for revenge and
for death; and never had he enacted such prodigies of valor as
now when that valor was about to be extinguished for ever!
Quarter was offered to him, and the tender answered by redoubled
blows of his weighty axe. Before he could be taken,
he had surrounded himself with a rampart of dead; and when
at length numbers prevailed, and he was a prisoner, so deep
was the respect of the victors toward so gallant a foe, that all
former prejudices vanished: and when he had opposed the first
attempt to remove his vizor, he was conveyed, unquestioned
and in all honor, to the tent of the Latin king.

The time had arrived when further concealment was impracticable.
The captive stood before the commander of the crusading
force; and the rules of war, no less than the usages of
that chivalrous courtesy practised alike by the warriors of the
West and their oriental foemen, required that he should remove
the vizor which still concealed his features. Still, however, he
stood motionless, with his arms folded across his breast, resembling
rather the empty panoply which adorns some hero's monument
than a being instinct with life, and agitated by all the
passions to which the mortal heart is liable. Words were addressed
to him in the lingua-Franca, or mixed language, which
had obtained during those frequent intervals of truce which
characterized the nature of the holy wars — breaking into the
bloody gloom of strife as an occasional ray of sunshine illuminates
the day of storm and darkness — but no effect was produced
by their sound on the proud or perhaps uncomprehending
prisoner.

For a moment, their former terrors, which had vanished on
the fall of their dreaded opponent, appeared to have regained

[figure description] Page 134.[end figure description]

their ascendency over the superstitious hearts of the unenlightened
warriors: many there were who confidently expected that
the removal of the iron mask would disclose the swart and
thunder-stricken brow, the fiery glance, and the infernal aspect,
of the prince of darkness! No resistance was offered
when the chamberlain of Guy de Lusignan stepped forward,
and with all courtesy unlaced the fastenings of the casque and
gorget. The clasps gave way, and scarcely could a deeper
consternation or a more manifest astonishment have fallen upon
the beholders had the king of terrors himself glared forth in
awful revelation from that iron panoply. It was no dark-complexioned
Saracen —

“In shadowed livery of the burnished sun,”

One name burst at once from every lip in accents of the
deepest scorn. It was the name of one whose titles had stood
highest upon their lists of fame; whose deeds had been celebrated
by many a wandering minstrel even among the remote
hills of Caledonia or the morasses of green Erin; the valor of
whose heart and the strength of whose arm had been related
far and near by many a pilgrim; whose untimely fall had been
mourned by many a maid beside the banks of his native Rhine!—
“Arnold of Falkenhorst!” The frame of the culprit was
convulsed till the meshes of his linked mail clattered from the
nervous motion of the limbs which they enclosed; a crimson
flush passed across his countenance, but not a word escaped

[figure description] Page 135.[end figure description]

from his lips, and he gazed straight before him with a fixed,
unmeaning stare — how sadly changed from the glance of fire
which would so short a time ago have quelled with its indignant
lightning the slightest opposition to his indomitable
pride!

For an instant all remained petrified, as it were, by wonder
and vexation of spirit. The next moment a fierce rush toward
the captive, with naked weapons and bended brows, threatened
immediate destruction to the wretched renegado.

Scarcely, however, was this spirit manifested, before it was
checked by the grand-master of the temple, who stood beside
the seat of Lusignan. He threw his venerable person between
the victim and the uplifted weapons that thirsted for his
blood.

“Forbear!” he cried, in the deep tones of determination —
“forbear, soldiers of the cross, and servants of the Most High!
Will ye contaminate your knightly swords with the base gore
of a traitor to his standard, a denier of his God? Fitter the
axe of the headsman, or the sordid gibbet, for the recreant and
coward! Say forth, Beau Sire de Lusignan — have I spoken
well?”

“Well and nobly hast thou spoken, Amaury de Montleon,”
replied the monarch. “By to-morrow's dawn shall the captive
meet the verdict of his peers; and if they condemn him — by
the cross which I wear on my breast, and the faith to which I
trust for salvation, shall he die like a dog on the gallows, and
his name shall be infamous for ever! Lead him away, Sir
John de Crespigny, and answer for your prisoner with your
head! And you, fair sirs, meet me at sunrise in the tiltyard:
there will we sit in judgment before our assembled hosts, and
all men shall behold our doom. Till then, farewell!”

In the dogged silence of despair was the prisoner led away,
and in the silence of sorrow and dismay the barons of that proud

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array passed away from the presence of the king: and the night
was again solitary and undisturbed.

It wanted a full hour of the appointed time for the trial, when
the swarming camp poured forth its many-tongued multitudes
to the tiltyard. The volatile Frenchman, the proud and taciturn
Castilian, the resolute Briton, and the less courtly knights
of the German empire, crowded to the spot. It was a vast
enclosure, surrounded with palisades, and levelled with the
greatest care, for the exhibition of that martial skill on which
the crusaders set so high a value, and provided with elevated
seats for the judges of the games — now to be applied to a more
important and awful decision.

The vast multitude was silent, every feeling absorbed in
breathless expectation; every brow was knit, and every heart
was quivering with that sickening impatience which makes us
long to know all that is concealed from our vision by the dark
clouds of futurity, even if that all be the worst —


“The dark and hideous close,
Even to intolerable woes!”
This expectation had already reached its highest pitch, when,
as the sun reared his broad disk in a flood of radiance above
the level horizon of the desert, a mournful and wailing blast of
trumpets announced the approach of the judges. Arrayed in
their robes of peace, with their knightly belts and spurs, rode
the whilome monarch of Jerusalem, and the noblest chiefs of
every different nation which had united to form one army under
the guidance of one commander. Prelates, and peers, and
knights — all who had raised themselves above the mass, in
which all were brave and noble, by distinguished talents of
either war or peace — had been convoked to sit in judgment
on a cause which concerned no less the welfare of the holy
church and the interests of religion than the discipline and

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laws of war. The peers of France and England, and the dignitaries
of the empire, many of whom were present, although
their respective kings had not yet reached the shores of Palestine—
were clad in their robes and caps of maintenance, the
knights in the surcoats and collars of their orders, and the prelates
in all the splendor of pontifical decoration. A strong
body of knights, whose rank did not as yet entitle them to seats
in the council, were marshalled like pillars of steel, in full
caparison of battle, around the listed field, to prevent the escape
of the prisoner, no less than to guard his person from premature
violence, had such been attempted by the enthusiastic and indignant
concourse.

Arnold of Falkenhorst — stripped of his Moorish garb, and
wearing in its stead his discarded robes of knighthood, his collar
and blazoned shield about his neck, his golden spurs on his
heel, and his swordless scabbard belted to his side — was
placed before his peers, to abide their verdict. Beside him
stood a page, displaying his crested burgonet and the banner of
his ancient house, and behind him a group of chosen warders,
keeping a vigilant watch on every motion. But the precaution
seemed needless: the spirits of the prisoner had sunk, and he
seemed deserted alike by the almost incredible courage which
he had so often displayed, and by the presence of mind for
which he had been so widely and so justly famous. His countenance,
even to his lips, was as white as sculptured marble,
and his eyes had a dead and vacant glare; and scarcely did he
seem conscious of the purpose for which that multitude was
collected around him. Once, and once only, as his eye fell
upon the fatal tree, which cast its long shadow in terrible distinctness
across the field of judgment, with its accursed noose,
and the ministers of blood around it, a rapid and convulsive
shudder ran through every limb; it was but a momentary affection,
and, when passed, no sign of emotion could be traced in

[figure description] Page 138.[end figure description]

his person, unless it were a slight and almost imperceptible
rocking of his whole frame from side to side, as he stood awaiting
his doom. Utter despondency seemed to have taken possession
of his whole soul; and the soldier who had looked unmoved
into the very eye of death in the field, sunk like the
veriest coward under the apprehensions of that fate which he
had no longer the resolution to bear like a man.

The herald stepped forth, in his quartered tabard and crown
of dignity, and the trumpeter by his side blew a summons on
his brazen instrument that might have waked the dead. While
the sounds were yet ringing in the ears of all, the clear voice
of the king-at-arms cried aloud: “Arnold of Falkenhorst, count,
banneret, and baron, hear! Thou standest this day before thy
peers, accused of heresy and treason; a forsworn and perjured
knight; a deserter from thy banner, and a denier of thy God;
leagued with the pagan dogs against the holy church; a recreant,
a traitor, and a renegado; with arms in thine hands wert
thou taken, battling against the cross which thou didst swear to
maintain with the best blood of thy veins! Speak! dost thou
disavow the deed?”

The lips of Arnold moved, but no words came forth. It
seemed as if some swelling convulsion of his throat smothered
his utterance. There was a long pause, all expecting that the
prisoner would seek to justify his defection, or challenge — as
his last resource — the trial by the judgment of God. The
rocking motion of his frame increased, and it almost appeared
as if he were about to fall upon the earth. The trumpet's din
again broke the silence, and the herald's voice again made
proclamation:

“Arnold of Falkenhorst, speak now, or hear thy doom! —
and then for ever hold thy peace!”

No answer was returned to the second summons; and, at
the command of Lusignan, the peers and princes of the crusade

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were called upon for their award. Scarcely had he ceased,
before the assembled judges rose to their feet like a single
man. In calm determination they laid each one his extended
hand upon his breast, and, like the distant mutterings of thunder,
was heard the fatal verdict — “Guilty, upon mine honor!”

The words were caught up by the myriads that were collected
around, and shouted till the welkin rang: “Guilty, guilty! —
To the gibbet with the traitor!”

As soon as the tumult was appeased, Guy de Lusignan arose
from his lofty seat, and — the herald making proclamation after
him — pronounced the judgment of the court:—

“Arnold of Falkenhorst, whilome count of the empire, belted
knight, and sworn soldier of the cross! by thy peers hast thou
been tried, and by thy peers art thou condemned! Traitor,
recreant, and heretic — discourteous gentleman, false knight,
and fallen Christian — hear thy doom! The crest shall be
erased from thy burgonet; the spurs shall be hewn from thine
heels; the bearings of thy shield shall be defaced; the name
of thy house shall be forgotten! To the holy church are thy
lands and lordships forfeit! On the gibbet shalt thou die like
a dog, and thy body shall be food for the wolf and the vulture!”

“It is the will of God,” shouted the assembled nations, “it
is the will of God!”

As soon as the sentence was pronounced — painful, degrading,
abhorrent as that sentence was — some portion of the
prisoner's anxiety was relieved; at least, his demeanor was
more firm. He raised his eyes, and looked steadily upon the
vast crowd which was exulting in his approaching degradation.
If there was no composure on his brow, neither was there that
appearance of abject depression by which his soul and body
had appeared to be alike prostrated. Nay, for an instant his
eye flashed and his lip curled, as he tore the collar of knighthood
and the shield from his neck, and cast them at the feet of

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the herald, who was approaching to fulfil the decree. “I had
discarded them before,” he said, “nor does it grieve me now
to behold them thus.” Yet, notwithstanding the vaunt, his
proud spirit was stung — stung more deeply by the sense of
degradation than by the fear of death. The spurs which had
so often goaded his charger to glory, amid the acclamations and
admiration of thousands, were hacked from his heels by the
sordid cleaver; the falcon-crest, which had once been a rallying-point
and a beacon amid the dust and confusion of the fight,
was shorn from his casque; the quarterings of many a noble family
were erased from his proud escutcheon, and the shield itself
reversed and hung aloft upon the ignominious tree. The pride
which had burst into a momentary blaze of indignation, had
already ceased to act upon his flagging spirits; and, when a
confessor was tendered to him, and he was even offered the
privilege of readmission within the pale of the church, he
trembled.

“The crime — if crime there be — is his,” he said, pointing
toward Guy de Lusignan. “I had served him, and served the
cross, as never man did, had he not spurned me with injury, and
disgraced me before his court, when I sought the hand of her
whom I had rescued by my lance from paynim slavery. Had I
been the meanest soldier in the Christian army, my deeds had
won me a title to respect, at least, if not to favor. De Lusignan
and his haughty daughter drove me forth to seek those rights
and that honor from the gratitude of the infidel which were denied
by my brothers-in-arms. If I am a sinner, he made me
what I am; and now he slays me for it! I say not, `Let him
give me the hand which he then denied me;' but let him spare
my life, and I am again a Christian; my sword shall again
shine in the van of his array; the plots, the stratagems, the
secrets of the moslem, shall be his. I, even I, the scorned and
condemned renegado, can do more to replace De Lusignan on

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the throne of Jerusalem than the lances of ten thousand crusaders—
ay, than the boasted prowess of Cœur de Lion, or the
myriads of France and Austria! All this will I do for him —
all this, and more — if he but grants me life. I can not — I
dare not die! — What said I? — I a Falkenhorst, and dare
not!”

“Thy life is forfeit,” replied the unmoved priest; “thy life
is forfeit, and thy words are folly. For who would trust a traitor
to his liege lord, a deserter of his banner, and a denier of
his faith? Death is before thee — death and immortality! Beware
lest it be an immortality of evil and despair — of the flame
that is unquenchable — of the worm that never dies! I say
unto thee, `Put not thy trust in princes,' but turn thee to Him
who alone can say, `Thy sins be forgiven!' Bend thy knee
before the throne of grace; pluck out the bitterness from thine
heart, and the pride from thy soul; and `though thy sins be
redder than scarlet, behold they shall be whiter than snow!'
Confess thy sins, and repent thee of thy transgressions, and He
who died upon the mount for sinners, even he shall open unto
thee the gates of everlasting life.”

“It is too late,” replied the wretched culprit, “it is too late!
If I die guilty, let the punishment light on those who shall have
sent me to my last account. Away, priest! give me life, or
leave me!”

“Slave!” cried the indignant priest — “slave and coward,
perish! — and be thy blood, and the blood of Him whom thou
hast denied, upon thine own head!”

Not another word was spoken. He knew that all was hopeless—
that he must die, unpitied and despised; and in sullen
silence he yielded himself to his fate. The executioners led
him to the fatal tree: his arms were pinioned — the noose adjusted
about his muscular neck. In dark and gloomy despair
he looked for the last time around him. He gazed upon the

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lists, which had so often witnessed the display of his unrivalled
horsemanship, and echoed to the applauses which greeted his
appearance on the field of mimic war; he gazed on many a familiar
and once-friendly face, all scowling on him in hatred
and disdain. Heart-sick, hopeless, and dismayed, he closed
his aching eyes; and, as he closed them, the trumpets, to whose
cheering sound he had so often charged in glory, rang forth the
signal of his doom! The pulleys creaked hoarsely — the rope
was tightened even to suffocation — and the quivering frame
struggled out its last agonies, amid the unheeded execrations
of the infuriate multitude!

p582-148 LEGENDS OF FEUDAL DAYS.

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