CHAPTER X.

CUCKOO PETER.

Day was slowly breaking upon the fateful night during which the

fugitives effected their escape from the manor of Plouernel. Joan the

Hunchback, seated at the threshold of her hut, which lay at the

extremity of the village, incessantly turned her eyes, red with weeping,

towards the road by which Fergan, absent since the previous morning in

quest of Colombaik, was expected. Suddenly the female serf heard from

afar a great tumult, caused by the approach of a large crowd of people.

At intervals confused and prolonged clamors were heard rising above the

din, frantically crying out: "God wills it! God wills it!" Finally Joan

saw a crowd of people turning a road that led to the village. At the

head marched a monk mounted on a white mule, whose bones protruded from

its skin, together with a man-at-arms astride of a small black horse,

not less lean than the mule of his companion.

The monk, called by some Peter the Hermit, but by most Cuckoo Peter,

wore a tattered brown frock, on the left sleeve of which near the

shoulder was sewn a cross of red material, the rallying sign of the

Crusaders on the holy march of the Crusade. A rope served him for a

belt. His unhosed feet, shod in worn-out sandals, rested on wooden

stirrups. His cowl, pushed back, exposed a bald head, boney and grimy

like the rest of his face, bronzed by the hot sun of Palestine. His

hollow eyes, glistening with a somber fire, flamed from the depths of

their orbits. His haggard looks expressed savage fanaticism. In one hand

he held a cross of rude wood, hardly planed, with which ever and anon he

smote the crupper of his mule to quicken its pace.

The companion of Cuckoo Peter was a Gascon knight surnamed Walter the

Pennyless. Of a physiognomy as grotesque and jovial as that of the monk

was savage and funereal, the mere sight of the knight provoked a smile.

His eyes, sparkling with mischief, his inordinately long nose, that

almost kissed the chin, his rakish mouth, slit from ear to ear, his

features hinged on a perpetual grin, amused from the start, and when he

spoke, his buffoonery and his mirthful sallies, delivered with southern

spirit, carried hilarity to its highest pitch. Wearing on his head a

rusty, cracked and knocked-in casque, ornamented with a bunch of goose

feathers, his chest covered with a breast-plate no less rusty, no less

cracked and no less knocked in than his casque, Walter the Pennyless

also wore the red cross on the left sleeve of his patched cloak. Shod in

cowhides, fastened with cords around his long heron legs, he bore

himself with as triumphant an air on his lean black hirsute horse, that

he named the "Sun of Glory," as if he bestrode a mettlesome charger. His

long sword, sheathed in wood, named by him the "Sweetheart of the

Faith," hung from his leathern shoulder belt. On his left arm he bore a

shield of tin, covered with vulgar pictures. One of these, filling the

upper part, represented a man clad in rags, knapsack on back and pilgrim

staff in hand, departing on the Crusade, as indicated by the cross of

red stuff painted on his shoulder. The lower picture represented the

same man, no longer wan and haggard, no longer dressed in tatters, but

splendidly fitted out, bursting with fat, and spread upon a bed, covered

with purple cloth, beside a beautiful Saracen woman, with nothing on but

collar and bracelets. A Saracen, wearing a turban and humbly kneeling,

poured out the contents of a coffer full of gold at the foot of the bed

where the Crusader was frolicking with his female bedfellow in an

obscene posture. The very crudity of the idea expressed by these vulgar

pictures was calculated to make a lively impression upon the childish

imagination of the multitude.

At the heels of Cuckoo Peter and Walter the Pennyless followed a mob of

men, women and children, serfs and villeins, mendicants and vagabonds,

prostitutes and professional thieves, the latter distinguishable by

their cropped ears, as well as the murderers, some of whom, in a spirit

of sanguinary ostentation, bedecked their breasts with pieces of black

cloth bearing in white one, or two, sometimes three skulls--a sinister

emblem, denoting that the holy Crusade gave absolution for murder,

however frequently committed by the criminal. All bore the red cross on

the left sleeve. Women carried on their backs their children too young

to walk, or too tired to proceed on the route. Other women, in an

advanced stage of pregnancy, leaned on the arms of their husbands,

loaded with a bag containing all their havings. The least poor of the

Crusaders traveled on donkeys, on mules or in wagons. They carried all

their belongings with them, even to their pigs and chickens. The latter,

fastened by the legs to the rails of the wagons, kept up a deafening

cackle. Other poor people dragged their milk goats after them, or a

loaded sheep, or even one or more cows.

Contrasting with this tattered multitude, here and there some couples

were seen, the cavalier in the saddle, his paramour on the crupper,

happy to escape through that holy pilgrimage the jealous or disturbing

surveillance of a father or a husband. These runaways also took the

route of the Orient. Among them was Eucher with the handsome Yolande,

dispossessed of her father's heritage by the seigneur of Plouernel. They

had sold a few jewels, given one-half the proceeds to Yolande's mother,

and with the rest the lovers bought a mule on which to follow the

Crusaders to Jerusalem.

This mob, consisting of three or four thousand persons, moving from

Angers and surrounding localities, recruited its forces all along the

route with new pilgrims. The faces of the serfs and villeins breathed

joy. For the first time in their lives they left an accursed land,

soaked in the sweat of their brow and in their blood, and to which, from

generation to generation, they and their fathers had been chained down

by the will of the seigneurs. At last they tasted a day of freedom, an

inestimable happiness to the slave. Their joyous cries, their disorderly

songs, gross, licentious, resounded far and wide, and ever and anon they

repeated with frenzy the words, hurled out by Cuckoo Peter in a hoarse

voice: "Death to the Saracens! Let's march to the deliverance of the

Holy Sepulchre! God wills it!" At other times they echoed the Gascon

cavalier, Walter the Pennyless: "To Jerusalem, the city of marvels! Ours

is Jerusalem, the city of pleasures, of good wine, of beautiful women,

of gold and of sunshine! Ours is the Promised Land!"

Singing, dancing, uproarious with gladness, the troop crossed the

village and passed by the hut of Fergan. The serfs, instead of betaking

themselves to the fields for their hard day's labor, ran ahead of the

train, shut in at that moment between two lines of ruined houses that

bordered the road. Joan, standing at the threshold of her door, looked

at this mob as it passed, with a mixture of astonishment and fear. A big

scamp of a gallows bird, nicknamed by his companions Corentin the

Gibbet-cheater, was giving his arm to a young wench that went by the

name of Perrette the Ribald. She noticed poor Joan the Hunchback at her

door and cried out to her, alluding to her deformity: "Halloa, you

there, who carry your baggage on your back, come with us to Jerusalem;

you will be admired there as one of the prodigies among the other

marvels!"

"By the navel of the Pope! By the buttocks of Satan! You are right, my

ribald!" cried the Gibbet-cheater. "There can be no hunchbacks in

Jerusalem, a land of beautiful Saracen women, according to our friend

Walter the Pennyless. We shall exhibit this hunchback for money. Come

on!" said the bandit, seizing Joan by the arm, "follow us, you camel!"

"Yes, yes," added Perrette the Ribald, laughing loudly and seizing the

other arm of the quarryman's wife, "come to Jerusalem; come to the land

of marvels!"

"Leave me alone!" said the poor woman, struggling to disengage herself.

"For pity's sake, leave me! I am expecting my husband and my child!"

Forced to follow her persecutors, and carried, despite herself, by the

stream of the Crusaders, Joan, fearing to be stifled or crushed under

foot by the crowd, sought no longer to struggle against the current.

Suddenly, instead of proceeding onward, the mob swayed back, and these

words ran from mouth to mouth: "Silence! Cuckoo Peter and Walter the

Pennyless are going to speak! Silence!" A deep silence ensued. Halting

in the middle of a large open space, where, gaping with curiosity, the

serfs of the village stood gathered together, the monk and his companion

prepared themselves to harangue these poor rustic plebs. Cuckoo Peter

reined in his white mule and rising in his stirrups, he screamed in a

hoarse yet penetrating voice, addressing the serfs of the seigniory of

Plouernel: "Do you, Christian folks, know what is going on in Palestine?

The divine tomb of the Saviour is in the hands of the Saracens! The Holy

Sepulchre of our Lord is in the power of the infidels! Woe is us! Woe!

Malediction! Malediction!" And the monk struck his chest, tore his

frock, rolled his hollow eyes in their sockets, ground his teeth, foamed

at the mouth, went through a thousand contortions on his mule, and

resumed with increased fury: "The infidel is lord in Jerusalem, the Holy

City! The miscreant insults the tomb of Christ with his presence! And

you, Christians, my brothers, you remain indifferent before so horrible

a sacrilege! Before such an abomination----"

"No, no!" cried back with one voice the mob of the Crusaders. "Death to

the infidels! Let's deliver the tomb! Let's march to Jerusalem, the city

of marvels and of beauty! God wills it! God wills it!"

The serfs of the village, ignorant, besotted, timid, opened wide their

eyes and ears, and looked at one another, never before having heard the

name of Jerusalem or of the Saracens mentioned, and unable to explain

the fury and contortions of the monk. Accordingly, Martin the Prudent,

the same who, two days before, had ventured to depict to the bailiff the

sufferings of his fellows, timidly said to Cuckoo Peter: "Holy patron,

seeing that our Lord Jesus Christ sits on his throne in heaven, together

with God the Father in eternal glory, what can it be to him whether his

tomb be in the hands of the people whom you call Saracens? Kindly

enlighten us."

"That's what we would like to know," joined another serf, a young fellow

who looked less stupid than the others. "We want to know that first."

"Oh, oh!" exclaimed Walter the Pennyless. "By my valiant sword, the

Sweetheart of the Faith! Here have we a rude questioner. What's your

name, my brave lad?"

"My name is Colas the Bacon-cutter."

"As surely as ham is the friend of wine, you must be a relative of my

friend Simon the Porkrind-scraper," replied the Gascon knight, amidst

peals of laughter from the serfs, who were delighted by this sally. "So,

then, you would like to know, my worthy Colas the Bacon-cutter, what it

can matter to Jesus Christ, enthroned in heaven with the Eternal Father

and the sweet dove, the Holy Ghost, if his sepulchre is held by the

Saracens?"

"Yes, seigneur," rejoined the serf; "because, if that displeases him,

how is it that, seeing he is God and omnipotent, he does not exterminate

them? Why does he not turn those Saracens into pulp at a single wafture

of his hand?"

"Woe is us! Abomination! Desolation of the world!" ejaculated Cuckoo

Peter, breaking in upon the Gascon adventurer, who was about to answer.

"Oh, ye people without faith, ingrates, impious and rebellious children!

Jesus Christ gave his blood to redeem you. Is that so or not?"

"Serfs were our fathers, serfs are we, serfs will our children be,"

retorted Colas the Bacon-cutter. "We have not been redeemed, holy

father, as you claim."

The answer of young Colas unquestionably embarrassed the monk; he shot

at him threatening glances, writhed on his mule and resumed in a

thundering voice: "Malediction! Desolation! Oh, ye of little faith!

Jesus has given you his blood to redeem you, and you, in return, refuse

to shed the blood of those accursed Saracens, who every day outrage his

sepulchre! This is what the divine Saviour has said.... Do you hear?...

Here is what he said.... Listen...."

Walter the Pennyless here broke in with his own harangue: "Those

accursed Saracens are gorged with gold, with precious stones, with

silver vessels; they inhabit a marvelous country where there is a

profusion without the trouble of cultivation: Golden wheat fields,

delicious fruits, exquisite wines, sweethearts of all complexions! One

must go there to believe it! Think of it! Winter is unknown, spring

eternal. The poorest of those infidel dogs have homes of white marble

and enchanting gardens, embellished with limpid fountains. The beggars,

clad in silk, play tennis with rubies and diamonds." A murmur of

astonishment, then of admiration ran through the serfs. Their eyes

fixed, their mouths agape, their hands clasped, they listened with

increasing avidity to the Gascon adventurer. "Such is the miraculous

country inhabited by those infidel dogs, and the Christians, the beloved

children of the holy Catholic Church, inhabit dens, eat black bread,

drink brackish water, shiver under a sky frozen in winter and rainy in

summer. No, let all the devils take it! Let my beloved brothers come to

the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre, exterminate the infidels, and then

they will have for their reward the prodigious lands of Palestine!

Theirs be Jerusalem, the city of silver ramparts, with golden gates,

studded with carbuncles! Theirs be the wines, the beautiful maids, the

riches of the accursed Saracens! If you wish all that, good people, it

is yours!" Then, turning to Peter the Hermit, "Not so, holy man?"

"It is the truth," answered Cuckoo Peter; "it is the truth. _The goods

of the sinner are reserved for the just_."

In the measure that the adroit lieutenant of Cuckoo Peter had held up to

the dazzled eyes of the poor villagers the ravishing picture of the

delights and riches of Palestine, a good number of those famished serfs,

clad in tatters and who all their lives had not crossed the boundaries

of the seigniory of Plouernel, began to tremble with ardent covetousness

and feverish hope. Others, more timid or less credulous, hesitated in

believing those marvels. Of these old Martin the Prudent was the organ.

Turning to his fellows: "My friends, that knight, on the back of that

little black horse that looks like an ass, has said to you: 'One must go

to that country to believe these marvels by seeing them with his own

eyes.' Now, then, it is my opinion that it is better to believe them

than to go and see them. It is not enough to depart for those regions.

One must be certain of provisions on the route, and to return from such

a distance."

"Old Martin is right," put in several serfs. "Let's take his advice and

stay home."

"Besides," added another serf, "those Saracens will not allow themselves

to be plundered without resisting. There will be blows received ... men

killed ... thousands of them."

These views, exchanged aloud, no wise troubled the Gascon adventurer. He

drew his famous sword, the Sweetheart of the Faith, and indicating with

its point the pictures that ornamented his shield, he cried out in his

cheerful and catching accent: "Good friends, see you this poor man with

his cane in his hand? He departed for the Holy Land, his pouch as empty

as his belly, his knap-sack as hollow as his cheeks. He is so ragged

that one would think a pack of dogs had been at him! Look at him, the

poor fellow, he is really to be pitied. What misery! What pinching

poverty, my friends!"

"Yes, yes," the serfs exclaimed together, "he is really to be pitied."

"And now, my friends, what see you here?," resumed the Gascon

adventurer, touching with the point of his sword the second picture on

his shield. "Here is our very man, one time poor! You do not recognize

him. I do not wonder, he is no longer the same, and yet it is himself,

round of cheeks, clad like a seigneur and bursting his skin. Beside him

lies a beautiful female Saracen slave, while at his feet a male Saracen

comes to surrender his treasure! Well, now, my friends, this man, once

so poor, so ragged at home, is you, is I, is all of us, and that same

friend so plump, so sleek, so well clad, that, again, will be you, will

be I, will be all of us, once we are in Palestine. Come, then, on the

Crusade! Come and deliver the tomb of the Saviour! The devil take the

rags, the rickety huts, the straw litters and the black bread! Let ours

be marble palaces, silk robes, purple carpets, goblets of delicious

wines, full purses, and beauteous Saracen women to rock us to sleep with

their songs! Come to the Crusade!"

"Come, come!," cried out Cuckoo Peter. "If you are guilty of robbery, of

arson, of murder, of prostitution, if you have committed adultery,

fratricide or parricide--all your sins will be remitted. Come to the

Crusade! Do you need an example, my brothers? William IX, Duke of

Aquitaine, an impious fellow, a ravisher, a debauche who counts his

crimes and adulteries by the thousands, William IX, that bedeviled

criminal, departs to-morrow from the city of Angers for Palestine, white

as a paschal lamb."

"And I, white as a swan!" interjected Corentin the Gibbet-cheater. "God

wills it! Let's depart for Jerusalem!"

"And I as white as a dove!" said Perette the Ribald, with a peal of

laughter. "God wills it! Let's depart for Jerusalem!"

"Yes, yes; let's depart on the Crusade!" cried out the more daring of

the villagers, intoxicated with hope. "Let's depart for Jerusalem."

Others, less resolute, less venturesome, and of these was the larger

number, took the advice of Martin the Prudent, fearing to stake their

fate, whatever their present misery, upon the cast of a dangerous

voyage and of unknown countries. They deemed insane the exaltation of

their fellows in servitude. Finally, others, still hesitated to take so

grave a step, and Colas the Bacon-cutter addressed Walter the Pennyless:

"To depart is easy enough. But what will our seigneur say to that? He

has forbidden us to leave his domains on pain of having our feet cut

off. And he will surely have the order carried out!"

"Your seigneur!" answered the Gascon adventurer breaking out in a

horse-laugh. "Scorn your seigneur as you would a wolf caught in a trap!

Ask these good people who follow us whether they have bothered about

their seigneurs!"

"No, no, the devil take the seigneurs!" cried out the Crusaders. "We are

going to Jerusalem. God wills it! God wills it!"

"What!" put in Cuckoo Peter, "the Eternal wants a thing, and a seigneur,

a miserable earthworm will dare oppose His will! Oh, desolation! Eternal

malediction upon the seigneur, upon the father, upon the husband, upon

the mother, who would dare resist the holy impulse of their children,

their wives, their serfs, who run to the deliverance of the tomb of the

Lord!"

These words of Peter the Hermit were received with acclamation by the

Crusaders. The beautiful Yolande and her lover, Eucher, as well as other

loving couples, cried out in emulation and louder than the others: "God

wills it! There is no will above his!"

"Master Walter the Pennyless," resumed Colas the Bacon-cutter,

scratching the back of his ear, "is it far from here to Jerusalem?"

"The distance is from sin to safety!" bellowed Cuckoo Peter. "The road

is short for the believers, endless for the impious! Are you a Christian

or a miscreant? Are you an idolater or a good Catholic?"

Colas the Bacon-cutter, finding himself, no more than some other serfs

who still hesitated, sufficiently instructed by the monk's answer on the

distance of the journey, asked again: "Father, it is said to be a long

ways from here to Nantes. Is it as far to Jerusalem?"

"Oh, man of little faith!" answered Peter the Hermit, "dare you measure

the road that leads to Paradise and to the Holy Virgin?"

"By the four swift feet of my good horse, the Sun of Glory! They are

thinking of the length of the road!" exclaimed Walter the Pennyless.

"See here, my friends, does the bird that escapes from its cage inquire

the length of the road when it can fly to freedom? Does not the ass in

the mill, turning his grindstone, and tramping from dawn to dusk in the

same circle, travel as much as the stag that roves through the woods at

pleasure? Oh, my good friends, is it not better, instead of, like the

ass of the mill, incessantly to tramp this seigniorial soil unto which

you are chained, to march in search of adventures, free, happy like the

stag in the forest, and every day see new countries?"

"Yes, yes," replied Colas, "the stag in the forest is better off than

the ass in the mill. Let's depart for Palestine!"

"Yes, let's depart for Palestine!" the cry now went up from several

other villagers. "On to that land of marvels!"

"My friends, be careful what you do," insisted Martin the Prudent. "The

ass in the mill at least receives in the evening his meager pittance.

The stags of the forest do not pasture in herds, hence they find a

sufficiency in the woods. But if you depart with this large troop, which

swells as it marches, you will be thousands of thousands when you reach

Jerusalem. Who, then, my friends, will feed you? Who is to lodge you on

the road? Who is to furnish you with clothes and footwear?"

"And who is it that lodges and feeds the birds of the good God, man of

little faith?" Cuckoo Peter exclaimed. "Do the birds carry their

provisions with them? Do they not raid the harvests along their route,

resting at night under the eaves of the houses? Answer, ye hardened

sinners!"

"By the faith of the Gibbet-cheater, you may trust that man!" here put

in Corentin. "As truly as Perrette is a daisy, our route from Angers to

this place has been but one continuous raid to us big birds on two legs.

What feasts we have had? Poultry and pigeons! Hams and sausages! Pork

and mutton! Tons of wine! Tons of hydromel! By my belly and my back, we

have raided for everything on our passage, leaving behind us but bones

to gnaw at and empty barrels to turn over!"

"And if those people were to complain," added Perrette the Ribald with

her usual outburst of laughter, "we would answer them: 'Shut up,

ninnies! Cuckoo Peter has read in the holy books that '_the goods of the

sinner are reserved for the just!_' Are not we the _just_, we who are on

the march to deliver the holy tomb? And are not you _sinners_, you who

stay here stagnating in your cowardice? And if these ninnies said but a

word, the Gibbet-cheater, backed by our whole band, would soon have

convinced them with a thorough caning."

These sallies of Perrette and Corentin completed the conversion of those

serfs who still hesitated. Seeing in the voyage but a long and merry

junket, a goodly number of them, Colas the Bacon-cutter at their head,

cried out in chorus: "Let's depart for Jerusalem, the country of

beautiful girls, good wines and ingots of gold!"

"Onward, march, my friends! Trouble your heads neither about the road,

nor about lodging, nor yet about food. The good God will provide!" cried

Walter the Pennyless. "On the march! On the march! If you have

provisions, take them along. Have you a donkey? mount him. Have you

wagons? hitch on, and put wife and children in them. If you have nothing

but your legs, gird up your loins, and on to Jerusalem! We are hundreds

upon hundreds; we soon shall be thousands upon thousands; and presently

we shall number hundreds of thousands. Upon our arrival in Palestine we

shall find treasures and delights for all--beautiful women, good wine,

rich robes, and lumps of gold in plenty!"

"And we shall all have gained eternal salvation! We shall have a seat in

Paradise!" added Cuckoo Peter in a strident voice, brandishing his

wooden cross over his head. "Let's depart for Jerusalem! God wills it!"

"Forward, let's depart for Palestine!" cried out a hundred of the

villagers, carried away by Colas, despite the prudent advice of Martin.

These ill-starred men, a prey to a sort of delirium, ran to their huts

and gathered up the little that they possessed. Some loaded their asses

in haste; others, less poor, hitched a horse or a yoke of oxen to a

wagon and placed their families on board; while Peter the Hermit and

Walter the Pennyless, to the end of inflaming still more the ardor of

these new recruits of the faith in the midst of their preparations for

the journey, struck up the chant of the Crusades that was soon taken up

in chorus by all the Crusaders:

"Jerusalem! Jerusalem! City of marvels! Happiest among all cities! You

are the subject of the vows of the angels! You constitute their

happiness! You will be our delight!

"The wood of the cross is our standard. Let's follow that banner that

marches on before, guided by the Holy Ghost!

"Jerusalem! Jerusalem! City of marvels! Happiest among all cities! You

are the subject of the vows of the angels! You constitute their

happiness! You will be our delight!"

Joan the Hunchback, having succeeded in freeing herself from the hands

of Corentin and his wench, had pushed herself not without great pains,

out of the compact mob, and was about to start back to her humble home

by cutting across the skirt of the village, intending to wait for the

return of her husband and child, a return that she hardly ventured to

hope for. Suddenly she turned deadly pale and tried to scream, but

terror deprived her of her voice. From the somewhat raised ground where

she stood, Joan saw, down the plain, Fergan carrying his son in his

arms, and running with all his might towards the village, with Garin the

Serf-eater at his heels. The latter, giving his horse the spurs,

followed the serf, sword in hand. Several men-at-arms on foot, following

at a distance the tracks of the bailiff, sought to make up to him in

order to render him armed assistance. Despite his efforts to escape,

Fergan led Garin by barely fifty paces. The lead was shortened from

moment to moment. Already within but two paces, and believing the

quarryman to be within reach of his sword, the bailiff had sought to

strike him down by leaning over the neck of his horse. Thanks to several

doublings, like those that hares make when pursued by the hound, Fergan

escaped death. Making, finally, a desperate leap, he ran several steps

straight ahead with indescribable swiftness, and then suddenly

disappeared from the sight of Joan as if he had sunk into the bowels of

the earth. A second later the poor woman saw Garin reining in his horse

with great effort near the spot where the quarryman had just disappeared

from view; he raised his sword heavenward, and then, instead of

proceeding straight ahead, turned to the left and followed at a full

gallop a hedge of green that traversed the valley diagonally. Joan then

understood that her husband, having jumped with the child to the bottom

of a deep trench, which the bailiff's horse could not clear, at the very

moment when he would have been struck down by the bailiff, the latter

had been compelled to ride along the edge of the trench to a point where

he might cross it, in order to proceed to the village, where he counted

upon capturing the quarryman. Joan feared lest her husband and child

were hurt in the leap. But soon she saw her little Colombaik climb out

of the trench with the aid of his little hand and supported by his

father, whose arms only were visible. Presently Fergan also climbed out,

picked up the child again, and carrying that dear load, continued to

flee at a full run towards the village, which he aimed at reaching

before the bailiff. Despite her weakness, Joan rushed forward to meet

her child and her husband, and joined them. Fergan, without stopping and

keeping the child in his arms, hurriedly said to his wife, almost out of

breath and exhausted: "Let's reach the village. Let's get in ahead of

Garin, and we shall be safe!"

"My dear Colombaik, you are here at last!" Joan said, while running

beside the serf and devouring the child with her eyes, forgetting at

the sight of him both the present perils and the past, while Colombaik,

smiling and reaching out his little arms, said: "Mother! mother! How

happy am I to see you again! Dear, good mother!"

"Oh," said the serf while redoubling his efforts to gain the village

before Garin, who was driving his horse at full speed, "had I not been

delayed burying a dead woman at the egress of the tunnel, I would have

been here before daybreak. We would have met to flee together."

"My child! They have not hurt you?" Joan was thinking only of her child,

one of whose hands she had seized and was kissing while weeping with

joy, and running beside her husband. At that moment the chant of the

Crusaders' departure resounded from afar with renewed fervor:

"Jerusalem! City of marvels!"

"What songs are these?" inquired the quarryman. "What big crowd is that,

gathered yonder? Whence come all these people?"

"Those are people who are going, they say, to Jerusalem. A large number

of the inhabitants of the village are following them. They are like

crazy!"

"Then we are really saved!" exclaimed the quarryman, seized with a

sudden thought. "Let's depart with them!"

"What, Fergan!" demanded Joan out of breath and exhausted with her

precipitate gait. "We to go far away with our child!"

But the serf, who found himself at the most a hundred paces from the

village, made no answer, and followed by Joan, he finally reached the

crowd, into the midst of which he dived, holding Colombaik and exhausted

with fatigue, while, muttering to his wife: "Oh, saved! We are saved!"

Garin, who had continued driving his horse along the trench until he

reached a spot where he could cross, observed with astonishment the

crowd of people that blocked his way and access to the village. Drawing

near, he saw coming towards him several of the serfs who preferred their

crushing servitude to the chances of a distant and unknown voyage. Among

these was old Martin the Prudent. Seeking to flatter the bailiff, he

said to him trembling: "Good master Garin, we are not of those rebels

who dare to flee from the lands of their seigneur to go to Palestine

with that troop of Crusaders, that are traveling through the country. We

do not intend to abandon the domain of our seigneur. We wish to work for

him to our last day."

"S-death!" cried out the bailiff, forgetting the quarryman at the

announcement of the desertion of a large number of the serfs. "The

wretches who have thought of fleeing will be punished." The crowd,

opening up before the horse of Garin, he reached the monk and Walter the

Pennyless, who were pointed to him as the chiefs of the Crusaders. "By

what right do you thus enter with a large troop upon the territory of my

seigneur, Neroweg VI, sovereign Count of Plouernel?" Then, raising his

voice still more and turning to the villagers: "Those of you, serfs and

villeins, who had the audacity of following these vagabonds, shall have

their hands and feet cut on the spot, like rebels----"

"Impious man! Blasphemer!" exclaimed Cuckoo Peter breaking in upon the

bailiff in a thundering voice. "Dare you threaten the Christians who are

on the march to deliver the tomb of the Lord? Woe be unto you!----"

"You frocked criminal," the bailiff in turn interrupted, boiling with

rage, and drawing his sword, "you dare issue orders in the seigniory of

my master!" Saying which, Garin, driving his horse towards the monk,

raised his sword over him. But Peter the Hermit parried the move with

his heavy wooden cross, and struck the bailiff such a hard blow with it

over his casque, that the latter, dazed for a moment, let fall his

sword.

"Death to the bandit, who would cut off the feet and hands of the

avengers of Christ!" several voices cried out. "Death to him! Death!"

"Yes, death!" yelled the serfs of the village, who had made up their

minds to depart for the Holy Land, and who abhorred the bailiff. "Death

to Garin the Serf-eater! He shall eat none more!" With that, Colas the

Bacon-cutter threw him from his horse, and in a moment the bailiff,

trodden under foot, was slaughtered and torn to pieces. The serfs broke

his bones, cut off his head, and Colas the Bacon-cutter, taking up the

livid head of the Serf-eater with the prong of his pitch-fork, raised

the bleeding trophy above the mob. Carrying it on high, he rejoined the

troop of the Crusaders, whereupon the crowd marched away singing at the

top of their voices:

"Jerusalem! Jerusalem! City of marvels! Happiest among all cities! You

are the subject of the vows of the angels! You constitute their

happiness! You will be our delight!

"The wood of the cross is our standard. Let's follow that banner that

marches on before, guided by the Holy Ghost!

"God wills it! God wills it! God wills it."

PART II.

THE CRUSADE.

CHAPTER I.

THE SYRIAN DESERT.

The sun of Palestine inundates with its blinding and scorching light, a

desert covered with reddish sand. As far as the eye reaches, not a house

is seen, not a tree, not a bush, not a blade of grass, not a pebble. Not

a sparrow could find shelter in this vast expanse. Everywhere a shifting

sand, fine as ashes, radiates back in more torrid temperature the heat

imparted to it by that flaming sun, vaulted by a fiery sky that dips in

the western horizon into a zone of burning vapor. Here and yonder, half

buried in the waves of sand that are periodically raised by the gales of

these regions, appear the whitened bones of men and children, horses,

asses, oxen and camels. The flesh of these bodies has been devoured by

vultures, jackals and lions. The Saracen proverb is verified: "The

Christians find here shelter only in the belly of the vultures, the

jackals and the lions!" These decomposing human and other debris trace

across the desert the route to Marhala, a city situated ten days' march

from Jerusalem,--the holy city toward which converge the several armies

of the Crusaders from Gaul, Germany, Italy and England, marching to the

conquest of an empty tomb.

If in this solitude there are skeletons and corpses half devoured, there

are also dying and living beings. Numerous are the dying, few, on the

contrary, the living; and the latter would count themselves happy if the

dead and the dying around them were the worst of their plight. Here are

the Crusaders, who, in their credulity, left the year before the

"ungrateful soil of the Occident" for the "miraculous land of the

Orient," where they arrived after a voyage of eleven or twelve hundred

leagues. The bulk of the army that left Gaul, then under the command of

Bohemund, Prince of Taranto, slowly melted away yonder, in the midst of

the thick cloud of dust raised by the marching Crusaders. In their wake

followed a long train of stragglers, scattered helter-skelter,--women,

children, the wounded, the infirm, the sick, a mass of wretchedness

dying of thirst, heat and fatigue. Here and there they drop down by the

way in this boundless desert, never to rise again.

The least to be pitied among these stragglers are those who, having lost

their horses, resolutely mounted an ass, an ox, a goat, occasionally one

of those huge Syrian mastiffs, three feet in height. They thus drag

along at the gait of the animal they ride, their swords on their side,

their lances at their backs. In order to protect themselves from the

consuming heat, that, descending at right angles on their skulls, often

caused insanity or death, they carry strange head-pieces. Some shelter

their heads under a piece of cloth spread out by means of sticks, that

they hold in their hands in the manner of a dais; cleverer ones have

plaited the dried leaves of the date plant into broad chaplets that

shade their brows; the larger number wore a species of mask made of

shreds of cloth, and perforated with a hole at the place of the eyes to

protect their eye-lids from a dust so scorching and corrosive that it

produced painful inflammations, and often led to death.

At a great distance from these Crusaders followed the foot-passengers in

grotesque costumes, and sinking to their knees in the shifting sand,

whose mere burning contact rendered intolerable the excoriation of their

feet, worn to the quick by the road. Their limbs bandaged in dirty rags,

the wounded tramped along painfully, leaning on their staffs. Women,

gasping for breath, carried their children on their backs, or dragged

them heaped upon rude sledges that they pulled after them with the aid

of their husbands. Among these wretches, almost wholly in tatters, some

were seen in bizarre accoutrement. There were men, who barely covered

with a crazy frock-coat, yet sported on their heads a rich turban of

Oriental material; others, out at toes, wore a splendid cloak of

embroidered silk, dashed with spots of blood, like all the other spoils

of pillage and massacre.

Suffocated with stifling heat, blinded with the dust that the march

raised, streaming with perspiration, parched with a devouring thirst,

their skins burnt by the sun, ill of humor, gloomy and discouraged,

these wretched beings were tramping along, muttering imprecations

against the Crusade, when they perceived a numerous and brilliant

cavalcade approaching through thick clouds of dust from a great distance

in the rear. At the head of the cavalcade and mounted upon a spirited

Arabian horse, black as ebony, advanced a young man in splendid

accoutrements. It is William IX, the handsome Duke of Aquitaine, the

impious poet, the contemner of the Church, the seducer of Malborgiane,

whose portrait he carried in Gaul upon his shield. But Malborgiane is

now forgotten and cast off, like so many other victims of this great

debauchee. William IX is advancing at the head of his men-at-arms. His

face at once bold and bantering, is partially covered by a wrapper of

white silk that falls upon his shoulders. The outlines of his elegant

and supple figure are set off by a light tunic of purple color; his

broad hose, worn loose in Oriental style, exposes his boots of green

leather, wrought in silver and tipped with gold. William carries neither

arms or armor. With his left hand he guides his horse; on his right,

covered with a gauntlet of embroidered leather, sits his favorite

falcon, hooded in scarlet and its legs ornamented with little gold

bells. Such is the courage of this bird that often does its master fly

it against the vultures of the desert, as he more than once starts

against the hyenas and jackals, the large hunting dogs with red collars

that, breathing heavily, follow his horse. At the crupper of his

prancing horse is a negro boy, eight or nine years of age, and quaintly

arrayed. He carries a large parasol, whose shade shelters the head of

William. At the right of the duke, and towering above him with its

large body, ambles a camel richly caparisoned. Another negro boy guides

the animal seated in front of the double litter, which, closed in with

silken curtains, is fastened with girths to the back and body of the

animal, and is so contrived that in each of its compartments a person

can be comfortably seated, protected from the sun and the dust. William

often ensconced himself in one of them.

Beside William, rode the chevalier, Walter the Pennyless. Before his

departure on the Crusade, the Gascon adventurer, pale, bony and

tattered, bore a strong resemblance to the poor devil sketched on the

upper part of his shield. Now, however, thanks to the sumptuousness of

his dress, the knight recalls the second picture on his shield. From the

pommel of his saddle hung a Venetian casque, which he had doffed for a

turban, a more comfortable head-gear on the route. A long Dalmatic of

light material, thrown over his rich armor, kept the latter from being

heated in the burning rays of the sun. Of his poor equipment of yore,

the Gascon preserved only his good sword, the Sweetheart of the Faith,

and his little horse, the Sun of Glory. Surviving by the merest accident

the perils and fatigues of the long passage, the Sun of Glory testified

by the lustre of his coat to the good quality of the Saracen fodder,

that he seemed to run short of as little as his master lacked

provisions.

Behind these personages followed the equerries of the Duke of Aquitaine,

carrying his standard, his sword, his lance and his shield, on which

William was in the habit of carrying the pictures of his mistresses, the

ephemerous objects of his libertine whims. Accordingly, the picture of

Azenor the Pale, replacing that of Malborgiane, now occupied the center

of the buckler; but, with a brazen refinement of corruption, other

medallions, representing some of his numerous other concubines,

surrounded the image of Azenor in token of homage.

The equerries led by the reins the duke's chargers, vigorous horses,

covered and caparisoned in iron, carrying pendent from their saddles

the several pieces of their master's armor. He could thus don his war

harness when came the hour of battle, instead of supporting its

oppressive weight during the long route. After the equerries came, led

by black slaves taken from the Saracens, the mules and camels that were

laden with the baggage and provisions of the duke. If hunger, thirst and

fatigue decimated the masses, the noble Crusaders, thanks to their

wealth, almost always escaped privations. One of William's camels was

loaded with several bags of citron and large pouches filled with wine

and with water,--inestimable commodities in a journey over the deserts.

About three hundred men-at-arms constituted the cavalcade of the Duke of

Aquitaine. These cavaliers, the only survivors of a thousand warriors

who departed on the Crusade, now habituated to battle, inured to fatigue

and bronzed by the sun of Syria, had long braved the dangers of the

murderous climate. Their heavy iron armor weighed on their robust bodies

no more than a coat of gauze. Disdain for danger, together with

ferocity, was depicted on their savage countenances. Many among them

bore from the pommels of their saddles, as bloody trophies, some Saracen

head freshly severed, and suspended from the single lock of hair that

Mohammedans keep at the top of their skulls. The cavaliers of the duke

were armed with strong ash or aspen-tree lances ornamented with

streaming bannerets, and double-edged long swords, besides a battle axe

or a spiked mace hanging from their saddles. Oval bucklers, hauberks or

steel coats-of-arms, braces, greaves, iron jambards,--of such was their

armor. The troop was rapidly riding through the bands of stragglers,

when a white slender hand parted the curtains of the litter beside which

rode the duke, and a voice was heard calling:

"William, I am thirsty, let me have some water!"

"Azenor wishes to refresh herself!," said the noble Crusader reining in

his horse and turning to Walter the Pennyless. "Fetch some water for my

mistress. I know woman's impatience. Besides, the lips must not be

allowed to languish that ask for a fresh drink or a warm kiss!"

"Seigneur duke, I shall fetch the drink, do you take care of the kiss,"

retorted the adventurer, turning his horse's head toward the baggage,

while, stooping down on his horse, the duke pushed his head under the

curtain.

"Oh, William, only the other day my lips were white and frozen. The fire

of your kisses has returned to them their reddish hue."

"Which proves that I can perform as great prodigies as you, my beautiful

witch."

"You quit giving me that name, William. It recalls the days I spent in

the turret of Neroweg Worse than a Wolf, whom I execrate,--days of shame

and trial to me, and whose memory haunts me."

"But you are well revenged for those days of shame. Count Neroweg is now

poorer than the lowest of his serfs as a result of his losses at the

gaming tables of Joppa where he met such consummate gamblers that they

won from him five thousand gold besans, his silver plate, his baggage,

his horses, his arms and even his sword. By Satan! I imagine I see that

Neroweg, that Worse than a Wolf, that Count of Plouernel, so rudely

plucked at the start of his Crusade, fighting with an old cap on for

helmet, a stick for a lance, and for charger an ass, a goat or good

Palestine mastiff!"

"Let's drop that sad topic, and talk about yourself, who have been the

dream of my youth. Now that I am yours, I should feel happy, and yet my

heart is cruelly tormented. Your inconstancy makes me despair. I am

dying with jealousy. Can it be that that infamous Perrette the Ribald

has her share of your caresses?"

"What a frisky and bold girl that Perrette is! After the siege of

Antioch, cup in hand, her hair to the breeze----"

"Be still, William, I am jealous of her!"

"Poor Ribald! She must have died on the route. She never turned up again

after that moment."

"I could have strangled her with my hands, and Yolande, also!"

"A ravishing girl! What a beautiful shape! A skin of satin! One

imagines, seeing her, the Diana of old resurrected!"

"You are pitiless!" replied Azenor with a tremulous voice. "I hate those

two women."

"Let others conquer Jerusalem! As to me, I'm satisfied with conquering

German, Saxon, Bohemian, Hungarian, Wallachian, Moldavian, Bulgarian,

Greek, Byzantine, Saracen, Syrian, Moorish and negro beauties. Yes, by

Venus! If I am anxious to enter Jerusalem, it is for the purpose of

capturing the handsomest of the Arabian virgins."

"You bold and debauched fellow, it is not an only woman I have to fear

for a rival! I am crazy for this man! Woe is me!"

"In order to appease your anger, I shall confide to you that there is a

whole race your jealousy has nothing to apprehend from. Heavens and

earth! the mere sight of a woman of that one breed would make me as

chaste as a saint, and would turn your lover into another St. Anthony!"

"Of what race are you speaking?"

"Of the Jews!" answered the Duke of Aquitaine with a look of disgust.

"Oh, when I had all the Jews and Jewesses exterminated from my

seigniories, not one woman of that accursed species escaped the torture,

and death!"

"Whence do you gather such a rage against those wretched people? What

harm have they done you? You have shown yourself cruel towards them,"

said Azenor the Pale with a slight tremor in her voice.

"Blood of Christ! See me take a Jewess for mistress! a Jewess!" replied

the duke, trembling anew. An instant later, wishing no doubt to

disengage himself from the thoughts that haunted him, William cried out

joyfully: "To the devil with the Jews, and long live Love! A sweet

kiss, my charmer! A conversation on those infernal people leaves me an

after-taste of sulphur and brimstone, as if I had tasted the kitchen of

Satan! Let mine be the ambrosia of your kisses, of your passionate

caresses, my loving one!"

A few distant cries and a tumult that broke out among the duke's

men-at-arms interrupted his conversation with Azenor. He turned his

head, and saw Walter the Pennyless riding towards him, holding a small

vermillion cup in the hand that was free from his horse's bridle. "What

noise is that?" asked the duke, taking the cup and passing it to Azenor.

"Seigneur duke, at the moment when your black slaves let down a pouch of

water to fill this cup, into which I had first pressed the juice of two

citrons and the sugar of one of the reeds found in this country and the

marrow of which is as sweet as honey, the stragglers gathered around.

'Water! Water! I die of thirst!' cried some; 'My wife and children are

dying for want!' cried others. By my sword, the Sweetheart of the Faith,

never did frogs at a mid-summer drought croak more frightfully than

those scamps. But some of your men-at-arms soon put an end to the

frightful croaking, by laying about with their lances. The impudence of

that rag-tag and bob-tail crowd is inconceivable! 'Where are those clear

fountains that you promised us at our departure from Gaul?' they yelled

in my ears; 'where are the refreshing shades?'"

"And what answer did you make, my merry Gascon, to those ignorant

questioners?" asked the duke laughing, while Azenor, leaning out of the

litter, was imbibing and enjoying the contents of the little vermillion

cup.

"I assumed the rude voice of my friend, Cuckoo Peter, and said to those

brutes: 'Faith is a rich fountain that refreshes the soul. You have

faith, ye soldiers of Christ. Dare you ask where are the shady gardens?

Is not faith, besides a fountain, also an immense tree that spreads over

the faithful its protecting branches? Rest yourselves, spread

yourselves in that shade. Never will an earthly oak tree have afforded

you a more delectable shelter under its leafy branches. Finally, if

these various refreshments should not yet suffice you, then broil in the

heat like fish under the sand!'"

"Well answered, my worthy Gascon!" And turning to his troop, the duke

ordered in a loud voice: "On the march, and make haste, lest the army

capture without us the city of Marhala, where a rich booty awaits us."

CHAPTER II.

SERF AND SEIGNEUR.

The cloud of dust raised by the troop of the Duke of Aquitaine was lost

at a distance in a burning mist, whose reddish vapors were invading the

horizon. Those among the stragglers who had resisted the fatigue, a

consuming thirst, or painful wounds, followed haltingly, at great

distances from one another, the road to Marhala, marked with so much

human debris, above which flocks of vultures, for a moment frightened

away, again leisurely flapped their wings. The last group of the

stragglers had disappeared in the whirlwind of dust raised by the train,

when three living creatures, a man, a woman and a child--Fergan, Joan

the Hunchback and Colombaik--were left alone in the midst of the desert.

Colombaik, dying with thirst, was stretched upon the sand beside his

mother, whose sore feet, wrapped in blood-clotted rags, could no longer

support her. On his knees beside them, his back turned to the sun,

Fergan sought to shade his wife and child with his body. Not far from

them, the corpses of a man and woman were in sight. An hour before the

woman had succumbed to the agonies of childbirth, bringing forth a still

child. The little being lay at the feet of its mother, almost shapeless,

and already blackened and shriveled by the fiery sun. The man had been

killed by the blow of a lance of one of the duke's men-at-arms for

having tried to capture one of the water pouches.

Joan the Hunchback, seated beside Colombaik, whose head she held upon

her knees, wept as she muttered: "Do you no longer hear me, dear heart?

Do you not answer me?" The tears of the poor woman left their furrows on

the dust-covered face of the child as they dropped, and ran down his

cheeks to the corners of his parched lips. His eyes half shut, and

feeling his face bathed in his mother's tears, Colombaik carried his

fingers mechanically towards his cheeks and his mouth, as if seeking to

quench his thirst with the maternal tears. "Oh!" muttered Joan,

observing the motions of her child, "Oh, if but my blood could recall

you to life!" And, struck by the idea, she said to the quarryman:

"Fergan, take your knife and open one of my veins; we may be able to

save the child!"

"I was myself thinking of letting him drink blood," answered Fergan;

"but I am robuster than you--" and the serf stopped short, interrupted

by the sound of a great flapping of wings above his head. He felt the

air agitated around him, raised his eyes and saw an enormous brown

vulture, its neck and head stripped of feathers, letting itself heavily

down upon the corpse of the still-born child, seize the little body

between its talons, and, carrying off its prey, rise into space emitting

a prolonged cry. Joan and her husband, for a moment forgetful of their

own agonies, followed with frightened eyes the circulating flight of the

vulture, when the serf descried, approaching from afar, a pilgrim

mounted on an ass.

"Fergan," said Joan to the quarryman, whose eyes were fastened on the

pilgrim, as he drew nearer and nearer, "Fergan, weakened as you are, if

you lose blood for our child, you will perhaps die. I could not survive

you. Who, then, would protect Colombaik? You can still walk and carry

him on your shoulders. As to me, I am beyond proceeding. My bleeding

feet refuse to carry me. Let me sacrifice myself for our child. You will

then dig me a grave in the sand, that I be not eaten up by the vultures

or the wild beasts."

Instead of answering his wife, Fergan said to her sharply: "Joan, spread

yourself on the ground; do not budge; pretend to be dead, as I shall. We

are saved!" Saying which the serf threw himself down flat on his stomach

beside his wife. Already the heavy breathing of the pilgrim's donkey was

heard approaching. Though prodded, the beast moved slowly and with

great effort, its legs sinking up to the knees in the sand. Its master,

a man of tall and robust stature, was clad in a tattered brown robe,

that fell to his feet, shod in sandals. In order to protect himself

against the heat of the sun, he had drawn over his head like a cowl the

tippet of his robe, which was sprinkled over with shells and bore the

red cross of the Crusader on the left shoulder. From the donkey's

pack-saddle hung a knap-sack, together with a large pouch of water.

While drawing near the corpses of the man and the woman whose new-born

child had just been carried off by the vulture, the pilgrim, speaking to

himself, said in a low voice: "Dead bodies everywhere! The road to

Marhala is paved with corpses!" Saying this he arrived near the place

where Joan and Fergan lay motionless on the sand. "And still more dead

bodies!" muttered the pilgrim, turning his head aside, and he kicked his

mule with both heels to hasten its pace. Hardly had he gone a few steps,

when, rising and springing forward with one bound, Fergan jumped on the

crupper of the donkey, seized the traveler by the shoulders, threw him

back and on the ground, and, placing both his knees on the pilgrim's

chest, held him down while hurriedly calling: "Joan, there is a full

pouch at the donkey's saddle, take it quick, and give our child to

drink!" The courageous mother was not able to walk, but dragging herself

on her knees and hands as far as the donkey, which had stood still after

its master was thrown down, she succeeded in unfastening the pouch, and,

weeping with joy she returned to her child, again dragging herself on

her knees with the help of one hand while holding the pouch with the

other, muttering: "Provided it is not too late, my God, and that our

child can be recalled to life!"

While Joan hastened to give her child to drink in the hope of plucking

him from the claws of death, Fergan was engaged in a violent struggle

with the traveler, whose traits he could not distinguish, the tippet of

the latter's robe having wound itself completely around his head. As

robust as the quarryman, this man made violent efforts to extricate

himself from the embrace of the serf. "I mean you no harm," Fergan was

saying to him, continuing to struggle with his adversary. "My child is

dying of thirst! you have in your pouch a precious beverage; I shall

take it in the knowledge that you would have answered with a refusal,

had I requested you for a few drops of the water that it contains."

"Oh, that I have not a single weapon to kill this dog who steals away my

water!" groaned the pilgrim while redoubling his efforts to disengage

himself. "In a minute I would have killed you; I would have cut you to

pieces, vagabond!"

"I know this voice!" cried out Fergan, and brusquely pulling aside the

folds of the tippet that covered the face of the traveler, the serf

remained dumb with astonishment. Under him lay Neroweg, Worse than a

Wolf!

The seigneur of Plouernel profiting by that moment of confusion, freed

himself from Fergan's hold, rose, and thinking only of his pouch of

water, cast his eyes about him. He saw a few steps away Joan, radiant

with joy, yet tearful, on her knees near Colombaik, and holding the

pouch which the child pressed with his two little hands, while he drank

with avidity. He seemed to regain life in the measure that he slaked his

consuming thirst.

"That bastard is drinking up my water!" Neroweg yelled with fury. "In

this desert, water is life," and he was about to rush upon Joan and her

child when the quarryman, recovering from his stupor, seized the Count

of Plouernel between his robust arms: "We are not here in your

seigniory; you covered with iron and I naked! Here we are man to man,

body to body! In the midst of this desert we are equals, Neroweg! I

shall have your life, or you shall have mine. Fight for it!"

A terrific struggle ensued, in the midst of the cries of Joan and

Colombaik, who trembled for husband and for father. The seigneur of

Plouernel was a man of redoubtable strength; but the serf, although

weakened with privation and fatigue, drew energy from his hatred of his

implacable enemy. A Gallic serf, Fergan was struggling with a descendant

of the Nerowegs! The combatants swayed forward and back, silent,

desperate, breast to breast, face to face, livid, terrible, foaming with

rage, palpitating with a homicidal ardor, furiously pressing each other,

under a brassy sky, in the midst of thick clouds of dust raised by their

own feet. On their knees, their hands joined in prayer, passing

alternately from hope to fear, Joan and Colombaik dared not approach the

two athletes, who ever and anon reappeared through the cloud of dust,

frightful to behold. Suddenly the thud of a heavy fall was heard,

simultaneously with the exhausted voice of Fergan: "Woe is me! Oh, my

wife! Oh, my child!" Fergan lay prone upon the sand, vainly battling

against Neroweg, who, having gained the upper hand, sought to strangle

his adversary. He held him under his left knee while raising himself by

his right leg that he stretched out with a violent effort. At the cries

of despair, "My wife! My child!" emitted by the serf, Colombaik ran to

his father, threw himself flat on the ground and clinging to the bare

and stiff leg of Neroweg, the child bit him in the calf. The sharp and

unexpected pain drew from the Count a scream, and he turned back sharply

towards Colombaik. Fergan, thus freed from the grasp of his seigneur,

lost no time to spring upon his feet, and now keeping the advantage,

succeeded in throwing Neroweg down. Calling his son to his aid, the serf

managed to pinion the arms of the Count with a long cord that held his

own robe at the waist, and to bind his legs with the fastenings of his

own sandals. Feeling his strength exhausted by this desperate combat,

Fergan, ready to faint, covered with perspiration, threw himself on the

sand beside Joan and his son. These hastened to approach to his lips the

pouch in which there still was some water left, while the seigneur of

Plouernel, breathing fast and broken, shot at the quarryman looks of

impotent rage.

"We are saved!" said Fergan when he had slaked his thirst and felt his

strength returning. "By husbanding the water still left in this pouch,

we shall have enough to reach Marhala with. I have a provision of dates

in my knap-sack. The ass will serve you and the child to ride on, my

poor Joan. I can still walk. As to the seigneur of Plouernel," Fergan

proceeded with a somber look, "he will soon need neither provision nor

conveyance!" And rising to his feet, while his wife and child followed

his movements with uneasy eyes, the serf approached Neroweg. The

seigneur, still stretched upon the sand, writhed in his bands, tugging

to burst them; then, exhausted by his idle efforts, he lay motionless.

"Do you recognize me?" asked the serf, crossing his arms on his breast,

and looking down upon the fettered seigneur of Plouernel; "Do you

recognize me? In Gaul you were my seigneur, I your serf. I am the

grandson of Den-Brao the Mason, whom your grandfather, Neroweg IV,

killed of hunger in the subterranean donjon of Plouernel. I am a

relative of Bezenecq the Rich, who died under the torture, in the

presence of his own daughter, herself going crazy with fear, and dying

at the very moment when I was rescuing her from her cell. I had to dig

her grave among the rocks that lie about the issue of the secret passage

from your castle."

"By the tomb of the Saviour! Is it you, vagabond, who penetrated to the

turret of Azenor the Pale? You helped her in her flight?"

"I went to look in your den for my child, whom you see yonder."

"Woe is me! I am alone in this desert, without arms, bound hand and

foot, at the mercy of this vile serf. How comes this dog to have

survived this long journey? A curse upon him!"

"I have survived in order to avenge upon you the wrongs you have

perpetrated upon my kin. This is not the first time that a descendant of

Joel the Gaul locks horns with a descendant of Neroweg the Frank. Before

us, in the course of centuries that rolled by, the ancestors of us two

have met arms in hand. Fate so wills it. It is a war to death between

our two races. The struggle, mayhap, will continue yet ages to come.

Neroweg, I am the evil genius of your race, as you and yours are the

persecutors of mine."

"That I should have to meet this miserable runaway serf, and find myself

in his power in the midst of a Syrian desert!" muttered the seigneur of

Plouernel, a prey to superstitious terror. "Jesus, my God, have mercy

upon me! I am a great sinner! Mighty Saint Martin, come to my help!"

"Neroweg," proceeded Fergan, after a moment's reflection, "the heat

grows suffocating, despite the sun's being veiled behind that reddish

mist that is slowly rising heavenward. My wife and I shall not proceed

on our journey until the moon rises. You and I shall have time to talk

matters over, before taking leave of each other forever."

The seigneur of Plouernel contemplated the serf with a mixture of

astonishment, defiance and terror. Fergan exchanged a look with Joan,

and sat down on the sand at a little distance from Neroweg. Indeed, the

atmosphere was becoming so stifling that the travelers, panting for

breath, and streaming in perspiration, yet, without making any motion,

would have been unable to resume their journey.

"In Gaul, at your seigniory, you were at once indicter, judge and

executioner over your serfs. To-day, my seigniory is this desert! and

you my serf! In my turn I shall be the indicter, the judge and the

executioner. The indictment I shall draw up will be the recital of my

journey. You may then, perhaps, understand the horror that you,

seigneurs, inspire your serfs with, when you will have learned the

dangers that we brave to escape your tyranny and enjoy a day of freedom.

When we left your seigniory, we were three thousand Crusaders, men,

women, or children. Our numbers increased daily. Thus, after we had

traversed Gaul from west to east, from Anjou to Lorraine, we were more

than sixty thousand when we crossed over into Germany. Other troops of

Crusaders, no less numerous than ours, and also proceeding from Gaul, to

the north from Flanders, to the south from Burgundy or Provence, struck

like ourselves the route for the Orient. After traversing Hungary and

Bohemia, skirting the Adriatic to Wallachia, and following the banks of

the Danube, we arrived at Constantinople. Thence we entered Asia Minor,

and from Asia Minor we made into Palestine, where we now are. What a

journey! For poor serfs, barefooted and in rags, the road is long. To

tramp fifteen hundred leagues in order to escape the oppression of the

seigneurs! But unhappy serfs that we are! We flee the seigneurs, and the

seigneurs pursue us into Palestine. The seigneur Baudoin seizes Edessa,

and there you have a 'Count of Edessa'; Godfrey, Duke of Bouillon, takes

Tripoli, and there you have a 'Prince of Tripoli.' When we shall have

arrived in Galilee, in Nazareth, in Jerusalem, we may live to see a

'King of Jerusalem,' a 'Baron of Galilee,' a 'Marquis of Nazareth!'--a

full seigniorial hierarchy."

"This miserable serf has gone crazy," muttered the seigneur of Plouernel

to himself. "He may, perhaps, forget to kill me."

"Our troop left Gaul, as I said, sixty thousand strong, under the lead

of Cuckoo Peter and Walter the Pennyless. On the road the inoffensive

inhabitants were pillaged, ravaged and massacred to the cry of 'God

wills it!' Deceived on the length of the journey and in their ignorance,

hardly had the Crusaders left Gaul, when, at the sight of each new town

they asked: 'Is that Jerusalem?' 'Not yet,' answered Cuckoo Peter, 'we

must march on!' And we marched. At the start it was a joy, a delirium, a

triumphal procession! Serfs and villeins were the masters. People fled

and trembled at our approach. The 'soldiers of Christ' sacked or burned

the towns, set fire to the harvests, killed the cattle that they could

not drag along, slaughtered old men and children, raped the women and

then cut them to pieces, heaped up booty, and from city to city repeated

the question: 'Is not that Jerusalem, either?' 'Not yet!' answered

Cuckoo Peter and Walter the Pennyless. 'Not yet! March on, march on!'

And we marched. The strangers, at first taken by surprise, allowed

themselves to be pillaged and massacred by the 'soldiers of the faith.'

But, soon apprised by report of the ravages committed by the Crusaders

and of their ferocity, these were fought with determination, and so

effectively were they cut down, that our troop, consisting of more than

sixty thousand people at the start, numbered at its arrival in

Constantinople only five or six thousand survivors. During the journey

through Asia Minor and Palestine, that number was reduced by one-half

through battles, the pest, hunger, thirst and fatigue. Among the

survivors, some, seized and kept for serfs of the new seigniories of

Edessa, Antioch or Tripoli, have been forced to cultivate these lands

for the seigneurs under the killing sun of the Holy Land. Others, and I

am of the number, preferring freedom to renewed servitude, risked their

lives in order to continue their march to Jerusalem. Some expect to find

considerable booty in the Holy City; others imagine they will gain

Paradise by rescuing the tomb of Christ. Of them all, I alone wish to

reach Jerusalem, in order to see the places where, now a thousand and

odd years ago, my ancestress, Genevieve, witnessed the death of the

young man of Nazareth. This is how was accomplished the pilgrimage of

those thousands of serfs and villeins, whose bones mark a long trail

from the frontiers of Gaul to this place. Fatality drove them. They were

forced to move on, or perish on the road. Thus, myself, fleeing from

your seigniory to escape your gaolers, would but have been exposed to

renewed servitude had I stopped in Gaul. Beyond the frontiers, to

separate myself from the Crusaders, and take my chances with my wife and

child among nations in arms against the 'soldiers of the cross,' would

have been insanity. There was no choice but to march, and march again.

Moreover, miserable as it was, yet our vagrant life was no worse than

the life of serfdom. That's how it happened, Neroweg, that we meet here

in the desert where you are mine, just as in your seigniory I was

yours,--at my will and mercy, in life and death. Do you understand?"

The seigneur of Plouernel muttered in a hollow voice, expressive of

concentrated rage: "Oh, to perish by the hand of a vile serf!"

"Yes, you shall die. But I mean to make your dying hour a long-drawn

torture. The vain-glory, the cupidity, the ambition of founding

seigniories in the Orient, the hope of buying back your forfeitures and

of escaping from the claws of the devil have driven you seigneurs to the

Crusade! Oh, how stupid you were! How many of you, haughty seigneurs,

after having sold or mortgaged your lands to the Church, are not this

hour ruined by gaming and debauchery, and reduced to beg your way! How

many have not been massacred or abandoned by your serfs a few miles from

your seigniories! How many of you have not died of the pest or under the

scimiter of the Saracen! Let this thought embitter your dying hour,

Neroweg, you are about to die like a beggar midst the sands of Syria,

while the Bishop of Nantes, your mortal enemy, having slipped through

your fingers, now enjoys the largest part of your domains! At this hour

you groan with a rage that is impotent, and my vengeance begins."

"A curse upon that Italian priest whom I captured with the Bishop of

Nantes! That Jeronimo turned my head speaking to me of the Crusade. He

made me fear for my salvation, pointing out that the hand of God weighed

heavy upon me by the death of one of my sons, killed by his own

brother!"

"Both your sons are dead, Neroweg! I myself felled the fratricide with a

blow of my iron bar at the moment he was about to do violence to the

daughter of Bezenecq the Rich! Both the wolves and the whelps of the

seigniories are beasts of prey and of carnage. They must be

exterminated!"

"My son Gonthram did not die, and Jeronimo promised me, in the name of

God, that if I departed for the Crusade and let the Bishop of Nantes

free, I would insure the recovery of my son. Oh, heart-broken at the

sight of one son dead and the other dying, I was bereft of reasoning! I

obeyed the priest and departed for Palestine,--to my greater undoing.

Bitterly I repent the day!"

Fergan, struck at the tenderness that the seigneur of Plouernel had not

been able to suppress at the mention of his son Gonthram, said to him:

"You love your son?"

Neroweg shot with his eyes daggers of hatred at the serf as he lay

stretched out on the sand at the latter's feet. Two tears rolled down

his savage face. But wishing to conceal his emotions from Fergan, he

turned his head brusquely aside. Joan and Colombaik, having drawn near

the quarryman, listened in silence to his dialogue with Neroweg. While

the seigneur sought to hide his tears, the woman saw them and said in a

whisper to her husband: "Despite his wickedness, that seigneur weeps at

the thought of his son. His sorrow affects me."

"Oh, father," put in Colombaik, joining his hands, "if he weeps, be you

merciful! Do not harm him!"

The serf remained silent a moment, then, addressing his seigneur said:

"You are moved at the thought of your child, and yet you meant to have

mine strangled. Do you imagine a serf has not, like you, a father's

heart?"

Neroweg answered with an outburst of sarcastic laughter.

"What are you laughing about?"

"I laughed as I would if I heard an ass, or other beast of burden, talk

about his 'father's heart,'" rejoined the seigneur of Plouernel. "You

vagabond, were I not in your power now, I would kill you for the vile

dog that you are!"

"In his eyes a serf has no more soul than a beast of burden!" repeated

the quarryman. "Yes, this man speaks in the sincerity of his savage

pride. He weeps for his own child. After all he is human. And yet, what

is a serf to him? An animal without heart, reason or feeling! But why

should I wonder? Neroweg cannot choose but share with his likes that

opinion of our animal abjectness. Our craven attitude confirms it. Our

conquerors are thousands, while we, the conquered, number millions, and

yet we patiently bear the yoke. Indeed, never did more docile cattle

march under the whip of a master, or stretch the neck to the butcher's

knife!" After a moment's silence, Fergan resumed: "Listen, Neroweg! You

are in my power, disarmed and fettered. I am about to fulfil a great

act of justice by braining you with my cudgel like a wolf caught in a

trap. It is the death that you deserve. Had I a sword, I would not use

it on you. But what you have just said has made me think and somewhat

spoils my pleasure. I admit it; by reason of our brutishness and

cowardice, we deserve to be looked upon and treated like cattle by you,

our seigneurs. 'Tis true, we are as craven as you are ferocious, but if

our cravenness explains your criminal conduct, it does not excuse it.

So, you shall die, Neroweg! Yes, in the name of the horrid ills that

your race has made mine suffer, you shall die! I only wish to keep a

memento of you, a descendant of the Nerowegs," and Fergan leaned forward

over the seigneur of Plouernel. The latter, believing his last hour had

come, could not restrain a cry of anguish. But the serf only pulled from

Neroweg's robe one of the shells that it was sprinkled with, as symbols

of a pious pilgrimage. For an instant Fergan contemplated the shell with

a pensive mien. Joan and her son, following with astonished and uneasy

looks the movements of the quarryman, saw him raise his ragged kilt,

that only half-covered his thighs, and detach a long belt of coarse

cloth that was wound around his waist. Inside the belt the quarryman

carried several pious mementos, that had been handed down from

generation to generation in his family, and which, before finally

marching away with the troop of the Crusaders, he had taken with him. To

them he added the shell he had just pulled from the robe of Neroweg VI.

Refastening his belt, the serf cried out: "And now, justice and

vengeance, Neroweg! I have accused you, judged and condemned you. You

shall now die!" Looking around for his heavy and knotted staff, he

grasped the massive implement with both his powerful hands, while his

wife and child implored aloud: "Mercy!" The serf, however, throwing

himself upon the seigneur of Plouernel planted one foot on the latter's

breast: "No, no mercy! Did the Nerowegs know mercy for my grandfather,

for Bezenecq the Rich, or for his daughter?" Saying which, the quarryman

raised the cudgel over the head of Neroweg, Worse than a Wolf, who,

gnashing his teeth, faced death without blanching. It would have been

over then and there with the seigneur of Plouernel had not Joan embraced

the knees of her husband, imploring him aloud: "For the love of your

son, have mercy! Without the water that you took from this seigneur,

Colombaik would have expired in the desert!"

Fergan yielded to the prayers of his wife. Despite the justice of the

reprisal, it went against his nature to kill an unarmed enemy. He threw

his staff far away; remained for an instant gloomy and silent and then

said to his seigneur: "It is said that despite your crimes, you and your

likes at times remain true to your vows. Swear to me, by the salvation

of your soul and by your faith as a knight, to respect from this moment

the life of my wife, of my child and of myself. I do not fear you so

long as we are alone in this desert, but if I meet you at Marhala or

Jerusalem with the other seigneurs of the Crusade, I and mine will be at

your mercy. You could order us burned or hanged. Swear that you will

respect our lives, I shall then have mercy upon you, and set you free."

"An oath to you, vile serf! To soil my word by passing it to you!" cried

out Neroweg, and he added with another outburst of sardonic laughter:

"As well might I give my word as a Catholic and a knight to the ass or

any other beast of burden!"

"This is too much!" yelled Fergan exasperated, while he ran to pick up

his club. "By the bones of my father, you shall die!"

At the very moment, however, when the serf had anew seized the cudgel,

Joan, clinging to his arm said with terror: "Do you hear yonder growing

noise?... It approaches.... It rumbles like thunder!"

"Father," cried out Colombaik, no less horrified than his mother, "look

yonder! The sky is red as blood!"

The serf raised his eyes, and, struck with the strange and startling

spectacle, forgot all about Neroweg. The orb of the sun, already near

the horizon, seemed enormous and of purple hue. Its rays disappeared at

intervals in the midst of a burning mist which it lighted with a dull

fire, and whose reflection suddenly crimsoned the desert and the air.

The frightful spectacle seemed to be seen through some transparent glass

tinted with a coppery red. A furious gale, still distant, swept over the

desert and carried with its dull and prolonged moanings a breath as

scorching as the exhalations of a furnace. Flocks of vultures fled at

full tilt before the approaching hurricane, scurrying over the ground or

dropping down motionless, palpitating, or uttering plaintive squeaks.

Suddenly the sun, ever more completely eclipsed, disappeared behind an

immense cloud of reddish sand that veiled the desert and the sky, and

that advanced with the swiftness of lightning, chasing before it the

jackals and the lions, that roared with fear, and rushed by,

terror-stricken, a few steps from Fergan and his family.

"We are lost! This is a sand-spout!" cried out the quarryman.

Hardly had the serf uttered these words of despair when he found himself

enveloped by a sand cloud as fine as ashes, and dense as a fog. The

mobile soil, hollowed, thrown up and up-turned by the irresistible force

of the sand-spout, opened at the feet of Fergan, who, with wife and

child, disappeared under a sand wave. The gale furrowed, beat about and

tossed up the sands of the desert as a tempest furrows, beats about, and

tosses up the waters of the ocean.

CHAPTER III.

THE EMIR'S PALACE.

The city of Marhala, like all others in the Orient, was crossed by

narrow and sinuous streets, bordered with whitewashed houses, bearing

narrow windows. Here and there the dome of a mosque or the top of a palm

tree, planted in the middle of an interior court-yard, broke the

uniformity of the straight lines formed by the terraces, that surmounted

all the houses. Since about fifteen days, and after a murderous siege,

the city of Marhala had fallen into the power of the army of the

Crusaders, commanded by Bohemond, Prince of Taranto. The ramparts of the

city, half torn down by the engines of war, presented at several places

only a heap of ruins, from which a pestilential odor escaped, due to the

decomposition of the Saracen bodies that were buried under the debris of

the walls. The gate of Agra was one of the points most violently

attacked by a column of Crusaders under the order of William IX, Duke of

Aquitaine, and also most stubbornly defended by the garrison. Not far

from the spot rose the palace of the Emir of Marhala, killed at the

siege. According to the manner of the Crusaders, William had his

standard raised over the door of the palace, of which he took

possession.

Night was falling. Maria, a large wrinkled old woman, with a beaked

nose, protruding chin, and clad in a long Saracen pelisse, sat crouched

upon a kind of divan, furnished with cushions, in one of the lower halls

of the Emir's palace. She had just issued the order to some invisible

person: "Let the creature come in, I wish to examine her!"

The creature that came in was Perrette the Ribald, the mistress of

Corentin the Gibbet-cheater. The young woman's complexion, now tanned by

the sun, rendered still more striking the whiteness of her teeth, the

coral tint of her lips and the fire of her eyes. The expression of her

pretty face preserved its blithe effrontery. Her tattered costume was of

both sexes. A turban of an old yellow-and-red material partially covered

her thick and curly hair; a waistcoat or caftan of pale green and open

embroidery, the spoils of a Saracen and twice too large for her, served

her for a robe. Held at the waist by a strip of cloth, the robe exposed

the naked legs of the Ribald, together with her dusty feet, shod in

shoddy sandals. She carried at the end of a cane a small bundle of

clothes. Upon entering the hall, Perrette said to the old woman

deliberately: "I happened on the market place when an auction sale of

booty was being conducted. An old woman, after eying me a long time,

said to me: 'You seem to be the right kind of a girl. Would you like to

exchange your rags for pretty clothes, and lead a merry life at the

palace? Come with me.' I answered the old woman: 'March, I follow!

Feastings and palaces are quite to my taste.'"

"You look to me to be a wide-awake customer."

"I'm eighteen years old. My name is Perrette the Ribald. That's what I

am."

"Your name is written on your brazen brow. But are you good company? Not

quarrelsome and not jealous?"

"The more I look upon you, honest matron, the surer I am of having seen

you before. Did you not keep at Antioch the famous tavern of the Cross

of Salvation?"

"You do not deceive yourself, my child."

"Ah, you must have made many a bag of gold besans in your holy brothel."

"What were you doing in Antioch, my pretty child?"

"I was in love ... with the King!"

"You are bantering, my friend, there was no king in the Crusade."

"You forget the King of the Vagabonds."

"What! The chief of those bandits, of those skinners, of those eaters of

human flesh?"

"Before he became the king of the bandits, I loved him under the modest

name of Corentin the Gibbet-cheater. Oh, what has become of him?"

"You must have left him?"

"One day I made a slip. I committed an infidelity towards him. I do not

plume myself upon my constancy. I left the King of the Vagabonds for a

duke."

"A duke of beggars?"

"No, no! A real duke. The handsomest of all the Crusaders, William IX."

"You were the mistress of the Duke of Aquitaine?"

"That was in Antioch, after the siege. William IX was crossing the

market-place on horseback. He smiled, and reached his hand out to me. I

placed my foot on the tip of his boot, with one jump I landed in front

of his saddle, and he took me to his palace," and seeming to recall some

droll incident, Perrette laughed out aloud.

"Are you laughing at some of your tricks?" asked the old shrew.

"On that same day when the Duke of Aquitaine took me on his horse, a

very beautiful woman went by in a litter. At the sight of her he turned

his horse and followed the litter. I, fearing he would drop me for the

other woman, said to him: 'What a treasure of beauty is that Rebecca the

Jewess, that has just gone by in a litter.' Ha! ha! ha! old lady,"

Perrette added, breaking out anew into roars of laughter. "Thanks to

that lucky slander, my debauche turned about and galloped off to his own

palace, fleeing from the litter no less frightened than if he had seen

the devil. And so it happened that, at least for that one day, I kept my

duke, and we spent the night together."

"I see. And what became of your king?"

"On the same evening of that adventure, he left Antioch with his

vagabonds on an expedition. I have not seen him since."

"Well, my little one, in default of your king, you will find your duke

back. You are here in the house of William."

"Of the Duke of Aquitaine?"

"After the siege of the city, William took possession of the Emir's

palace. He gives to-night a feast to several seigneurs, the flower of

the Crusade. Almost all old customers of my tavern in Antioch: Robert

Courte-Heuse, Duke of Normandy; Heracle, seigneur of Polignac; Bohemond,

Prince of Taranto; Gerhard, Count of Roussillon; Burchard, seigneur of

Montmorency; William, sire of Sabran; Radulf, seigneur of Haut-Poul, and

many more merry blades, without counting the gentlemen of the cloth, and

the tonsured lovers of pretty girls, of Cyprus wine and of dice."

"Is it for this one feast, you old mackerel, that you are engaging me?"

"You will remain in the palace until the departure of the army for

Jerusalem, my gentle pupil and pearl of gay girls."

The entrance of a third woman interrupted the conversation between Maria

and Perrette, who, uttering a short cry, ran to a miserably dressed

young girl, just let in. "You here, Yolande?"

Yolande preserved her beauty, but her face had lost the charm of candor,

that rendered her so touching when she and her mother implored Neroweg

VI not to deprive them of their patrimony. The face of Yolande,

alternately bold and gloomy, according as she brazened out or blushed at

her degradation, at least gave token that she was conscious of her

infamy. At sight of Perrette, who ran towards her with friendly

eagerness, Yolande stepped back ashamed of meeting with the queen of the

wenches. Perrette, reading on the countenance of the noble girl a

mixture of embarrassment and disdain, said to her reproachfully: "You

were not quite so proud when, ten leagues from Antioch, I kept you from

dying of thirst and hunger! Oh, you put on airs! You have become

haughty!"

"Why did I leave Gaul?" muttered Yolande with sorrowful contrition.

"Though reduced to misery, at least I would not have known ignominy. I

would not have become a courtezan! A curse upon you, Neroweg! By

depriving me of the inheritance of my father, you caused my misfortune

and shame!"

The girl, unable to repress her tears, hid her face in her hands, while

Maria, who had attentively examined her, said to Perrette in an

undertone: "Oh, the pretty legs of that girl! Do you know Yolande?"

"We left Gaul together, I on the arm of the Gibbet-cheater, Yolande at

the crupper of her lover, Eucher. In Bohemia, Eucher was killed by the

Bohemians who resisted us. Yolande, now a widow and alone, could not

continue so long a journey without protection. From one protector to

another, Yolande fell under the eyes of the handsome Duke of Aquitaine

at Bairut in Syria. Later I found her riding on the road to Tripoli

dying of hunger, thirst and fatigue----"

"And you came to my aid, Perrette," fell in Yolande, who, having dried

her tears, overheard the words of the queen of the wenches. "You gave me

bread and water to appease my hunger and thirst, and you saved my life."

"Come, my children, let's not have tears," remarked the matron. "Tears

make old faces. You shall be taken to the baths of the Emir, where are

assembled some of the most beautiful Saracen female slaves of that

infidel dog."

At that moment an old woman, the same who had introduced Perrette and

Yolande to the hall, came in roaring with laughter, and said to the

other shrew: "Oh, Maria, what a find! A diamond in your brothel!"

"What makes you laugh that way?"

"A minute ago, coming back from casting my hook on the

market-place,"--and she broke out laughing anew. Presently she

proceeded: "And I found there--I found there--a diamond!"

"Finish your story!"

But the second old hag, instead of answering, disappeared for an instant

behind the curtain that masked the door, and immediately re-appeared

conducting Joan the Hunchback, who led by the hand the little

Colombaik, no less exhausted than herself from privations and fatigue.

To all cruel hearts the poor woman, indeed, was a laughable sight. Her

long, tangled hair, half tumbling over her face, fell upon her bare

shoulders, dusty like her breast, arms and legs. Her clothing consisted

of shreds, fastened around her waist with a band of plaited reeds, so

that her sad deformity was exposed in all its nudity. Joan had stripped

herself of the rags that constituted the bodice of her robe in order to

wrap the feet of Colombaik, flayed to the quick by his long tramp across

the burning sands. The quarryman's wife, sad and broken down, quietly

followed the shrew, and daring not to raise her eyes, while the latter

did not cease laughing.

"What sort of thing is that you bring me there?" cried out the coupler.

"What do you want to do with that monster?"

"A first-class joke," replied the other, finally overcoming her

hilarity. "We shall rig out this villein in some grotesque costume,

leaving her hump well exposed, and we shall present this star of beauty

to the noble seigneurs. They will split their sides with laughter.

Imagine this darling in the midst of a bevy of pretty girls. Would you

not call that a diamond?"

"Ha, ha, ha! An excellent idea!" the matron rejoined, now laughing no

less noisily than her assistant. "We shall place upon her head a turban

of peacock feathers; we shall ornament her hump with all sorts of

gew-gaws. Ha, ha! How those dear seigneurs will be amused. It will pay

us well!"

"That's not all, Maria. My find is doubly good. Look at this marmot. It

is a little cupid. Everyone to his taste!"

"He is certainly sweet, despite his leanness, and the dust that his

features are stained with. His little face is attractive."

Seized with compassion at the sight of Joan and her child, Yolande had

not shared in the cruel mirth of the two shrews. But Perrette, less

tender, had broken out into a loud roar, when, suddenly struck by a

sudden recollection, and attentively eyeing Joan, against whom

Colombaik, no less confused and uneasy than his mother, was cuddling

closely, the queen of the wenches cried out: "By all the Saints of

Paradise! Did you not inhabit in Gaul one of the villages of a

neighboring seigniory of Anjou?"

"Yes," answered the poor woman in a weak voice, "we started from there

on the Crusade."

"Do you remember a young girl and a tall scamp who wanted to carry you

along to Palestine?"

"I remember," answered Joan, regarding Perrette with astonishment; "but

I managed to escape those wicked people."

"Rather say those 'good people,' because the young woman was myself, and

the tall scamp my lover, Corentin. We wanted to take you to the Holy

Land, assuring you that you would be exhibited for money! Now, then, by

the faith of the queen of the wenches! confess, Yolande, that I am a

mighty prophetess!" added Perrette, turning to her companion. But the

latter reproachfully answered her: "How have you the courage to mock a

mother in the presence of her child!"

These words seemed to make an impression upon Perrette. She checked her

laughter, relapsed into a brooding silence, and seemed touched by the

fate of Joan, while Yolande addressed the woman kindly: "Poor, dear

woman, how did you allow yourself to be brought here with your child?

You cannot know what place this is. You are in a house of prostitution."

"I arrived in this city with a troop of pilgrims and Crusaders, who, by

a miracle, escaped, like myself and son, a sand-spout that buried, a

fortnight ago, so many travelers under the sands of the desert. I had

sat down with my son under the shadow of a wall, exhausted with fatigue

and hunger, when yonder woman," and Joan pointed to the shrew, "after

long looking at me, said to me charitably: 'You seem to be very much

tired out, you and your child. Will you follow me? I shall take you to a

holy woman of great piety.' It was an unlooked-for piece of good luck to

me," added Joan. "I put faith in the words of this woman, and I followed

her hither."

"Alack! You have fallen into a hateful trap. They propose to make sport

of you," Yolande replied in a low voice. "Did you not hear those two

shrews?"

"I care little. I shall submit to all humiliation, all scorn, provided

food and clothing be given to my child," rejoined Joan in accents that

betokened both courage and resignation. "I will suffer anything upon

condition that my poor child may rest for a while, recover himself and

regain his health. Oh, he is now doubly dear to me----"

"Did you lose his father?"

"He remained, undoubtedly, buried in the sand," answered Joan, and like

Colombaik, she could not restrain her tears at the memory of Fergan.

"When the sand-spout broke over us, I felt myself blinded and

suffocated. My first movement was to take my child in my arms. The

ground opened under my feet and I lost consciousness. I remember nothing

after that."

"But how did you reach this city, poor woman?" asked the queen of the

wenches, interested by so much sweetness and resignation. "The road is

long across the desert, and you seem too feeble to sustain the fatigues

of such a journey."

"When I regained consciousness," answered Joan, "I was lying in a wagon,

near an old man who sold provisions to the Crusaders. He took pity upon

me and my child, having found us in a dying condition, half buried under

the sand. Surely my husband perished. The old man told me he saw other

victims near us when he picked us up. Unfortunately the mule to which

the wagon of the charitable man was hitched died of fatigue ten leagues

from Marhala. Compelled to remain on the road and to abandon the troop

of pilgrims, our protector was killed trying to protect his provisions

against the stragglers. They pillaged everything, but they did not harm

us. We followed them, fearing to lose our way. I carried my child on my

back when he found himself unable to walk. It was thus that we arrived

in this city. It is a sad story!"

"But your husband may yet, like you, have escaped death. Do not

despair," observed Yolande.

"If he escaped that danger, it was probably to fall into a greater, for

the seigneur of Plouernel----"

"The seigneur of Plouernel!" exclaimed Yolande interrupting Joan, "do

you know that scoundrel?"

"We were serfs in his seigniory. It is from the country of Plouernel

that we departed for the Holy Land. Accident made us meet with the

seigneur count shortly before the sand-spout burst upon us. My husband

and he fought----"

"And did he not kill Neroweg?"

"No, he yielded to my prayers."

"What, pity for Neroweg, Worse than a Wolf!" exclaimed Yolande in an

explosion of rage and hatred. "Oh, I am but a woman! But I would have

stabbed him to the heart without remorse! The monster!"

"What did he do to you?"

"He deprived me of the inheritance of my father, and, falling from shame

to shame, I have become the companion of the queen of the wenches."

"Oh, mademoiselle Yolande," remarked Perrette, returning to her cynic

quips, "will you ever remain proud?"

"I?" answered the young woman with a sad and bitter smile. "No, no!

Pride is not allowed me. You are the queen. I am one of your humble

subjects."

"Come, come, my daughters!" said the matron. "The day declines. Go to

the baths of the Emir. As to you, my beauty," proceeded the devilish

shrew, addressing Joan, "as to you, we shall rig you up, we shall

perfume you, and above all we shall have your hump radiate with

matchless lustre."

"You may do with me what you please, when you will have given my child

wherewithal to appease his hunger and thirst. He must recover his

strength, he must sleep. I shall not leave him one instant."

"Be easy, my star of beauty, you shall remain at his side, nor shall

your child want for anything. We shall pay due attention to him."

CHAPTER IV.

ORGIES OF THE CRUSADERS.

The interior court-yard of the palace of the Emir, of Marhala, presented

that evening a fairy aspect. The court was a perfect square. Along the

four sides ran a wide gallery of Moorish ogives carved with trifoil and

supported by low pillars of rose-colored marble. Between each column and

into the court, large vases of Oriental alabaster filled with flowers

served as pedestals to gilded candelabras holding torches of perfumed

wax. Mosaics of various colors ornamented the floor of the galleries.

The ceilings and walls disappeared under white arabesques chiseled on a

purple background. Soft silken divans reclined against the walls,

pierced with several ogive doors that were half closed with curtains

fringed with pearls. These doors led to the interior apartments. At each

corner of the galleries, gilded cages with silver bars held the rarest

birds of Arabia, on whose plumage were mirrored the glint of the ruby,

the emerald and the azure sapphire. In the center of the court a jet of

crystalline water shot up from a large porphyry vase, falling back in a

brilliant spray, and producing the murmur of a perpetual cascade as the

water overflowed into a broad basin, from whose marble rim rose another

circle of large and gilded candelabras, similar to those along the

galleries. This refreshing fountain, sparkling with light, served as

central ornament to a low table that wound around the basin and was

covered with a cloth of embroidered silk. On it glistened the

magnificent gold and silver vessels, carried from Gaul by the Duke of

Aquitaine, and the rich spoils taken from the Saracens: goblets and

decanters studded with precious stones, large amphoras filled with wine

of Cyprus and Greece, huge gold platters on which were displayed

Phoenician peacocks, Asiatic pheasants, quarters of Syrian antelopes

and mutton, Byzantine hams, heads of the wild boars of Zion, and

pyramids of fruit and confectionery. The banquet hall had for its dome

the starry vault. The night was calm and serene; not a breath of wind

agitated the flames of the torches.

But the tumult of an orgie resounded at this sumptuous table, around

which, seated or reclining upon couches, feasted the guests of William

IX. Distinguished above all and occupying the place of honor, was the

legate of the Pope; then followed, to the right and left of the Duke of

Aquitaine, Bohemond, Prince of Taranto; Tancred; Robert Courte-Heuse,

Duke of Normandy; Heracle, seigneur of Polignac; Siegfried, seigneur of

Sabran; Gerhard, Duke of Roussillon; Radulf, seigneur of Haut-Poul;

Arnulf, sire of Beaugency; and other seigneurs of Frankish origin,

beside the knight, Walter the Pennyless. These noblemen, already

effeminated by Oriental habits, instead of remaining armed from dawn to

dusk, as in Gaul, had exchanged their harness of war for long robes of

silk. The Duke of Aquitaine, whose hair floated on a tunique of gold

cloth, wore, after the fashion of the ancients, a chaplet of roses and

violets, already wilted by the vapors of the feast. Azenor the Pale,

whose lips, no longer white as of yore, but now red with life, was

seated beside William, superbly ornamented with sparkling collars and

bracelets of precious stones. The papal legate, clad in a robe of purple

silk bordered with ermine, carried on his breast a cross of carbuncles

hanging from a gold chain. Behind him, ready to wait upon his master,

stood a young negro slave, in a short blouse of white silk with silver

collar and bracelets ornamented with corals. The cup-bearers and

equerries of the other seigneurs likewise attended the table. The wines

of Cyprus and of Samos had been flowing from vermillion amphoras since

the beginning of the feast, and flowed still, carrying away in their

perfumed waves the senses of the guests. The Duke of Aquitaine, one arm

encircling the waist of Azenor, and raising heavenward the gold goblet

at which his mistress had just moistened her lips, called out: "I drink

to you, my guests! May Bacchus and Venus be propitious to you! Honor to

him who is deepest in love!"

Heracle, the seigneur of Polignac, in turn raised his cup and answered:

"William, Duke of Aquitaine, we, your guests, drink to your courtesy and

your splendid banquet!"

"Yes, yes!" joined the Crusaders; "let's drink to the banquet of William

IX! Let's drink to the courtesy of the Duke of Aquitaine!"

"I drink gladly," said Arnulf, the seigneur of Beaugency, in his cups,

and, shaking his head, he added meditatively, a sentence already

repeated by him a score of times during the repast with the tenacity of

the maudlin: "I'd like to know what my wife, the noble lady Capeluche,

is doing at this hour in her chamber!"

"By my faith, seigneurs," said the seigneur of Haut-Poul, "as true as

ten deniers were paid for an ass's head during the scarcity at the siege

of Antioch, I have not in my life feasted like to-night. Glory to the

Duke of Aquitaine!"

"Let's talk of the scarcity," rejoined Bohemond, the Prince of Taranto;

"its recollection may serve to rekindle our satisfied hunger and our

extinguished thirst."

"I ate up my shoes soaked in water and seasoned with spices," said the

sire of Montmorency.

"Do you know, noble seigneurs," put in Walter the Pennyless, "that there

are comrades, luckier or wiser than we, who never suffered hunger in the

Holy Land, and whose faces are fresh and ruddy?"

"Who are they, valiant chevalier?"

"The King of the Vagabonds and his band."

"The wretches who ate up the Saracens, and regaled themselves with human

flesh?"

"Seigneurs," remarked Robert Courte-Heuse, Duke of Normandy, "we must

not run down Saracen flesh."

"These feasts on human flesh," explained the seigneur of Sabran, "are

not at all wonderful. My grandfather once told me that, during the

famous famine of 1033, the plebs fed on one another."

"I remember one evening," added Walter the Pennyless, "when I and my

friend Cuckoo Peter had a famous supper----"

"And what has become of that Peter the Hermit?" inquired Gerhard, Duke

of Roussillon, interrupting the Gascon adventurer. "It is now a month

since he left us. We have not heard from him since. Is he dead or

alive?"

"He has gone to join the army of Godfrey, Duke of Bouillon, who we are

to connect with before Jerusalem," answered Walter. "But allow me, noble

seigneurs, to tell you my tale. As I was saying, one evening, at the

camp before Edessa, Cuckoo Peter and I, attracted by a delicious kitchen

odor, that spread from the quarter of the King of the Vagabonds, walked

into their quarters, and their worthy monarch made us sup on a tender

roast, so fat, so toothsomely seasoned with saffron, salt and thyme,

that I swear by my good sword, the Sweetheart of the Faith, Cuckoo Peter

and I licked our chops! What a morsel!"

"We should not enlarge in that manner upon abominable feasts on human

flesh, seigneurs," said the legate; "we should entertain ourselves with

some other subject more pleasing and pious. If you are willing, I shall

tell you of a miracle that we are preparing for to-morrow."

"What miracle, holy man?" inquired the Crusaders. "What a lucky

windfall!"

"A prodigious miracle, my children, which will be one of the most

telling triumphs of Christianity. Peter Barthelmy, deacon of Marseilles,

had a vision after the capture of Antioch. Saint Andrew appeared before

him and said: 'Go into the church of my brother Peter, situated at the

gate of the city. Dig up the earth at the foot of the main altar, and

you will find the iron of the lance that pierced the side of the

Redeemer of the world. That mystic iron, carried at the head of the

army, will insure the victory of the Christians and will pierce the

hearts of the infidels.' Peter Barthelmy having communicated to me this

miraculous vision, I assembled six bishops and six seigneurs, the most

pious and pure. We went to the church. The earth was dug up in our

presence at the foot of the main altar--and--to our stupefaction----"

"The iron of the holy lance was found!" interrupted William IX, in a

roar of laughter, relapsing into his habitual incredulity.

"You deceive yourself, sinner!" answered the legate. "Peter Barthelmy

found nothing in that hole. What a misfortune that a man, who so

passionately hates the Jews, should be incredulous to such a degree! But

sooner or later the grace of heaven will descend upon you. Meantime I

shall confound your incredulity. The lance's iron was not then found.

But Peter Barthelmy, moved by a new inspiration of Saint Andrew, threw

himself into the hole, dug in it with his nails, and finally did

discover the iron of the holy lance. To-morrow, the deacon is to walk

across a burning pyre, in order to demonstrate, in plain view of all,

the virtue of that precious relic, that will render him insensible to

the flames. The miracle is assured----"

"A truce with your idle talk!" said William, interrupting the legate.

"Halloo, there, cup-bearers, equerries, bring the dice, the checks, my

casket of gold, and fetch in the dancers. After a banquet, there's

nothing like a cup in one hand, the dice in the other, and beautiful

girls in sight, dancing, naked or in gauze!"

"To the game, to the game!" cried the Crusaders. "Equerries, fetch the

dice, bring in the dancers and withdraw!"

The orders of the Duke of Aquitaine were executed. The domestics of his

household placed under the galleries and near the divans little Saracen

tables of sculptured ivory, on which they laid the checks and dice. The

Crusaders, in keeping with their unbridled passion for gambling, had

provided themselves with fat purses of gold besans, now handed to them

by their lackeys. During the tumult due to the preparations for the

games and the removal of the seigneurs from the tables to the divans

under the gallery, Azenor, her features distorted by the tortures of

jealousy, convulsively grasped the arm of the Duke of Aquitaine, who at

that moment was opening a casket filled with gold, and whispered to him

in a hollow and excited voice: "William, you gave the order to bring in

women hardly clad and even naked!"

"That's so, my charmer, and you heard the grateful applause of my

guests!"

"Who are those women?"

"Dancers, the joy of banqueters after a feast. Beauties who have nothing

to refuse----"

"Whence come they?"

"From the land of marvels, India!"

"Take care! Do not drive me to extremes! Hell burns in my heart! Woe is

me! Those creatures here, and under my very eyes? You know that jealousy

turns me crazy!"

The Duke of Aquitaine answered his mistress with bantering nonchalance,

and drew near a group of seigneurs who were looking at a troop of girls

that had just burst into the banquet hall. Noticeable above all were

Perrette and Yolande, the former always brazen and challenging. Already

the Crusaders, inflamed with wine and amorousness, acclaimed the troop

with cries of vulgar license, when Maria announced in a loud voice: "One

moment, noble seigneurs, reserve your enthusiasm for the treasure of

youth, of beauty and of charms that I hold under this veil and who is

about to dazzle your charmed eyes!"

Saying this, the shrew pointed to a confused form, hidden under a long

white veil that trailed on the floor. Astonishment and curiosity calmed

for a moment the impure ardor of the Crusaders. A deep silence ensued.

The eyes of all sought to penetrate the semi-transparency of the veil,

when suddenly the Duke of Aquitaine cried out: "Gentlemen, it is my

opinion that that aster of beauty must be the reward of that cavalier

who displayed the greatest valor at the siege of Marhala!"

"Yes, yes!" responded the Crusaders. "That's right! That treasure must

be the prize of the most valorous!"

"I shall not, then, be gainsaid by any," proceeded the Duke of

Aquitaine, "when I proclaim that Heracle, the seigneur of Polignac,

showed himself the bravest among the brave at the siege of this city."

Cries of approval received William's words, who went on saying:

"Heracle, seigneur of Polignac, yours is that treasure of beauty! Yours

alone the privilege of unveiling that radiant aster that will dazzle us

all!"

The seigneur of Polignac eagerly broke through the group of Crusaders,

while Perrette exclaimed banteringly, affecting despair: "Oh, cruel man,

you leave me for a miraculous beauty!" and catching the eye of William

she cried out: "My handsome duke will console me for all my sorrows!"

"By Venus!" said William in great glee, "welcome to you, my ribald! Come

to my arms, and all sensuous pleasure along with you!"

"Your Azenor will strangle me!"

"The devil take Azenor! Long live Love!"

During this short dialogue between the Duke of Aquitaine and Perrette,

the seigneur of Polignac had approached the veiled woman, and raised the

gauze that concealed from the eyes of all the prize of the most valiant.

The surprise and discomfiture of the Crusaders were first expressed by

mute stupor. Before them stood poor Joan the Hunchback, on her head an

enormous red turban stuck with peacock's feathers, and a short skirt of

the same color on her body, fastened at her waist and completely

exposing her sad deformity. By her side, little Colombaik pressed

himself close to his mother, and was dressed in a flowing tunic, his

hair curled and perfumed, but his eyes and ears covered by a bandage. "I

consent to serve as your toy, to endure all humiliations, seeing you

have promised to provide for my child and not to separate me from him,"

were the words of Joan to Maria before lending herself to this cruel

buffoonery; "but I insist, in the name of my dignity as mother, in the

name of my child's chastity, to cover his eyes and ears, that he may

not be a witness of his mother's degradation."

At sight of Joan the Hunchback, the Crusaders, first stupefied, soon

broke out in loud peals of laughter, which were redoubled by the

disappointment that Heracle of Polignac seemed to labor under. Still

under the effects of his discomfiture, he gazed open-mouthed at Joan.

At that moment, livid, her features distorted with jealousy, Azenor was

running from one Crusader to another, asking where William had gone to.

But the seigneurs, half intoxicated and unconcerned at the sufferings of

the love-sick woman, answered her with jests. "Let's carry the hunchback

in triumph!" exclaimed several voices in the midst of deafening peals of

laughter.

Joan paled with fear. Resigned beforehand to all sorts of jests and

humiliations, she had not foreseen such an excess of indignity.

Trembling and distracted, the poor woman dropped upon her knees and

holding her child in her arms, she muttered amid sobs: "My poor child!

Why did we not die with your father in the sands of the desert!"

Already, despite Joan's tears, the Crusaders were seizing her, when a

great uproar broke out in one of the chambers that opened into the

gallery. Immediately, menacing and terrible to behold, Fergan the

Quarryman threw himself into the middle of the hall armed with a cudgel

and calling out loudly to Joan and Colombaik.

"Fergan!" "Father!" the woman and the child cried out together. At the

sound of their voices, Fergan rushed across the group of Crusaders

swinging his heavy stick and distributing such hard blows before him to

the right and to the left, that the seigneurs, stunned and frightened,

retreated precipitately before the serf. Beating his way through them,

Fergan joined at last his wife and child, and pressed them to his heart

in a passionate embrace. The domestics, thrown down, trodden under foot

and half killed by Fergan, rose out of breath and explained to the

seigneurs: "We were standing at the gate, playing chuck-farthing, when

this madman ran up to us from the direction of the market-place. He

asked us whether a hunchback and her child had been taken to the palace.

'Yes,' said we, 'and just now they are the amusement of the noble guests

of our seigneur, the Duke of Aquitaine.' The madman then threw himself

upon us, ran through the gate of the palace, struck us with his cane,

and got here."

"He must be hanged on the spot!" the Duke of Normandy cried out. "These

pillars will do for a gibbet. Fetch cords!"

"That bandit has dared to threaten us with his cudgel! He deserves the

gallows!"

"Death to the criminal! Death!" cried out the Crusaders, now recovered

from their first stupor, "Death to the vagabond!"

"But where is the Duke of Aquitaine? No one can be hanged here without

his consent."

"He disappeared with the queen of the wenches. But his absence should

not delay the execution of this wretch. When he returns he will find the

vagabond hanging high and dry. William will ratify the sentence, and

approve it."

"I shall give my belt for a rope."

After embracing his wife and child, Fergan took in at a glance the

gravity of the situation, and observed that the seigneurs were not

armed. Profiting by their first surprise, he had his wife and child

climb on the banquet table and ordered them to stand with their backs

against the marble edge of the basin. Thereupon, placing himself before

them, his heavy cudgel in hand, he made ready for a desperate defence.

But still wishing to try a last means of escape, he addressed the

Crusaders, who were about to assault him: "For pity's sake, let me

depart from this palace with my wife and child!"

"Listen to the bandit, praying for mercy! Quick! Let one of these

pillars serve him for a gibbet. Swing a rope around his neck!"

"You may hang me!" cried out the serf in despair, "but more than one of

you will have to fall under my cudgel!"

The threat rekindled the fury of the Crusaders. Already, braving the

rapid swing of Fergan's cudgel, several seigneurs were rushing forward

to seize the serf, when suddenly the braying of clarions was heard from

afar, together with loud and nearing cries of: "To arms! The Saracens

are upon us! To arms! To the ramparts!" Several men-at-arms of the Duke

of Aquitaine rushed into the hall, sword in hand, and calling out: "The

Saracens have profited by the night to surprise the city. They have

entered near the gate of Agra by the breech that we made. They are

fighting on the ramparts. To arms, seigneurs, to arms! Duke of

Aquitaine, to arms!" Hardly had these men-at-arms pronounced the name of

the duke in the midst of the increasing tumult caused by the

announcement of this unforeseen attack, than William IX. appeared, his

clothes in disorder, coming out of one of the chambers that opened into

the gallery. He was pale and terror-stricken, and held in his hands a

parchment, while he cried in a terrified voice: "A Jewess! A Jewess!

Damnation!"

"William, arm yourself!" his companions called out to him, as they

precipitately rushed out with the men-at-arms. "The Saracens are

attacking the city! Let's run to the ramparts! To arms!"

"A Jewess!" repeated the Duke of Aquitaine with eyes fixed, his brow

bathed in perspiration, and seeming neither to hear nor to see his

companions in arms. Perceiving the legate of the Pope, William threw

himself on his knees at the feet of the prelate: "Holy father, have pity

upon me! I am damned! While I was chatting with the queen of the

wenches, Azenor entered the chamber where we were and, holding out this

parchment, said to me she was a Jewess, and that the parchment, written

in Hebrew, furnished the proof. I have been a miserable sinner. Holy

father, have pity upon me! I am damned! Mercy for my soul! Upon my knees

I ask you for absolution!"

CHAPTER V.

THE KING OF THE VAGABONDS.

At dawn, the sun rose over the plain that surrounds the city of Marhala,

surprised at night by the Saracens and defended by the Crusaders. The

infidels, relying more on their audacity than on their numbers, perished

almost to a man in the assault. Only a small number of prisoners were

taken. The approaches of the breech in the ramparts, not far from the

gate of Agra, through which the Saracens sought to surprise the city,

disappeared under a heap of corpses. Clouds of vultures hovered over

that abundant quarry, but dared not yet let themselves down on it. Men

of prey were ahead of the birds.

These men, wholly naked, red and dripping blood, and hideous to behold,

went and came like geniuses of death in the midst of that field of

carnage. They would seize the body of a Saracen, strip it of its

clothes, roll that in a bundle, and then, kneeling over the naked

corpse, they pried open its jaws, rigid in death, carefully felt about

in its mouth and under its tongue; finally, with the aid of long knives,

they would cut open the corpse's gullet, chest and bowels, whose

intestines they then pulled out and examined. Their faces, hands and

members streaming blood, these demons were under the command of a chief.

He gave orders and directed their sacrilegious profanations. They called

him their king. It was Corentin the Gibbet-cheater, become chief of the

vagabonds. His seneschal, one-time serf of the seigniory of Plouernel,

was the identical Bacon-cutter, who, with a blow of his pitchfork had

thrown Garin the Serf-eater from his horse just before the latter was

butchered by the villagers.

The King of the Vagabonds and his seneschal gave token of rare

dexterity in their shocking trade. The two had just seized, one by the

head the other by the feet, the corpse of a young Saracen. His face, his

rich raiment, hacked by sabre blows, the bodies of several Crusaders

stretched on either side of him--all bespoke the fierce resistance the

warrior must have offered. "Oh, oh!" said the King of the Vagabonds,

"that dog must have been some chieftain, it can be seen by his

embroidered green caftan. Great pity that his dress is so slashed to

pieces; it might have served as a mantle for Perrette."

"You still think of the Ribald?" asked the Bacon-cutter, helping

Corentin to strip the Saracen of his clothes; "your Perrette is in the

Paradise of the wenches, on the crupper of some canon, or in the harem

of some emir."

"Seneschal, Perrette would leave Paradise, an emir or a canon if the

Gibbet-cheater told her to. Come. Our corpse is now naked. Make a bundle

of the clothes. They will find purchasers in the market-place of

Marhala. Now that we have taken the peel from this Syrian fruit," he

added, pointing to the dead body, "let's open it. It is inside that the

precious almonds must be looked for, such as besans of gold and precious

stones. Give me your knife. I wish to sharpen it against mine. The blade

of mine has been dulled on the gullet of that old Saracen yonder with

the white beard. The devil! His cartilage was as tough as that of an old

goat," and while his seneschal was bundling up some clothes, the King of

the Vagabonds sharpened his knife, casting upon the corpses strewn

around him looks of satisfied covetousness, and remarked: "That's what

it means to get up early in the morning. After their night's fight, the

Crusaders have gone to sleep. When they will come to plunder the dead,

we shall be at the dice!"

"Great King! It is an easy matter to rise early if one has not gone to

bed. We arrived in time to gather the harvest on this field of carnage."

"Will you, vagabonds, still reproach me for having induced you to leave

the fortress of the Marquis of Jaffa?" replied the king, continuing to

sharpen his knife. "Think of lying in a stronghold in order to play the

brigand in Palestine! It was folly!"

"And yet, many of those new seigneurs who have left themselves down in

the Holy Land as dukes, marquises, counts and barons, begin everywhere,

just as they used to in Gaul, to ply the trade of highwaymen on the

mainroads."

"With this difference, seneschal, that there are no high roads here, and

hardly anybody to rob. One must roam over ten or twelve miles of sand or

rocks in order to meet a few thin troops of travelers, who, instead of

kindly allowing themselves to be plundered, like the townsmen and

merchants of Gaul, but too often strike back, show their teeth and use

them too."

"Great King! You speak wisely. Indeed, during those two months spent

with the Marquis of Jaffa, we made but two sorry finds. At one of these,

by the faith of the Bacon-cutter, we were warmly curried and rudely

beaten, and all for almost nothing."