By Murillo.THE BIRTH OF MARY.
By Murillo.
THE BIRTH OF MARY.
“This is indeed the blessed Mary’s land,Virgin and Mother of our dear Redeemer!All hearts are touched and softened by her name;Alike the bandit with the bloody hand,The priest, the prince, the scholar and the peasant,The man of deeds, the visionary dreamer,Pay homage to her as one ever present.”—Longfellow—“Golden Legend.”
“This is indeed the blessed Mary’s land,Virgin and Mother of our dear Redeemer!All hearts are touched and softened by her name;Alike the bandit with the bloody hand,The priest, the prince, the scholar and the peasant,The man of deeds, the visionary dreamer,Pay homage to her as one ever present.”—Longfellow—“Golden Legend.”
“This is indeed the blessed Mary’s land,Virgin and Mother of our dear Redeemer!All hearts are touched and softened by her name;Alike the bandit with the bloody hand,The priest, the prince, the scholar and the peasant,The man of deeds, the visionary dreamer,Pay homage to her as one ever present.”
“This is indeed the blessed Mary’s land,
Virgin and Mother of our dear Redeemer!
All hearts are touched and softened by her name;
Alike the bandit with the bloody hand,
The priest, the prince, the scholar and the peasant,
The man of deeds, the visionary dreamer,
Pay homage to her as one ever present.”
—Longfellow—“Golden Legend.”
—Longfellow—“Golden Legend.”
“I walked along the top of the hills overlooking Nazareth. A glorious scene opened on the view. The air was perfectly serene and clear. I remained for some hours lost in contemplation of the wide prospect and the events connected with the scene. One of the most beautiful and sublime prospects on earth.”—Robinson’sBiblical Researches.
“I walked along the top of the hills overlooking Nazareth. A glorious scene opened on the view. The air was perfectly serene and clear. I remained for some hours lost in contemplation of the wide prospect and the events connected with the scene. One of the most beautiful and sublime prospects on earth.”—Robinson’sBiblical Researches.
The avenging Turks easily persuaded themselves that they could serve God better by participating in the sacking of fallen Acre than by pursuing the conquered, fleeing Christian knights; so they let the latter escape inland, while they themselves returned to the pillage. Ere long, by stealth, good fortune and Providential leading, the fugitives arrived unmolested at the top of a hill, overlooking the little city of Nazareth, forever memorable as having been once the earthly abiding place of Jesus and Mary. On the waythither scarcely a sentence had been spoken, for each felt that murmuring would be harmful, mirth inopportune. They chose their course indifferently, all following Sir Charleroy de Griffin because he rode bravely and onward. The fugitives paused, partly sequestered by the shrubbed hillock, forgetting for a time all else in admiration of the outspreading panorama in view. Heaven and earth were smiling at each other; thousands of leagues of sky were filled with the raptured songs of larks, while as echo and challenge of the songs from above, the thrush and robin of the grass knoll and thicket responded. From the plains of El Battaf on the north to Esdrælon on the south Nature, God’s flower queen, had decked the earth everywhere with blossoms of pinks, tulips and marigolds.
“Those dusky cowards,” spoke Sir Charleroy, “though numbering ten to one, will not seek us here; they’ll wait an opportunity to ambuscade us.”
“We’ve broken our knight’s pledge, never to flee more than the distance of four French acres from a foe, and yet methinks we’ve made them respect our swords; that’s something to say, though we’ve not made them respect our creed.” It was a Knight of the Golden Cross that spoke.
Sir Charleroy continued, while his eyes turned toward the city: “I thirst for the waters of a fount in Nazareth as did David once for one in Bethlehem.”
“For all of our getting at it, Nazareth’s water might as well be in Ethiopia,” spoke a Hospitaler.
“I’ve a yearning that comes near to sending me on a charge into the city.”
“That would be a hot pursuit of death surely.”
“A fair one, then, since death has been long pursuing us.” After a moment’s pause Sir Charleroy continued:
“Ah, death! None can escape, none overtake him; see we are his prisoners now, yet he tantalizes us by a show of immunity. As a sarcophagus is let down by suspending ropes in tedious stages, with jogglings and pauses, into the grave, so passes each through perils and sickenings from life to death. No, no, an undue fear of death intoxicates us until phantasmagoria possess the brain. We call these hopes; they are delusive! But will any of you follow for a charge down to the Virgin’s fountain? We can not more than die; that we must soon, in any event. I think I could die more complacently, having cooled my thirst where she was wont to cool hers.”
“Ugh,” exclaimed the Templar, with a shudder of disgust, “the fountain flows out through an old stone coffin! By my plume! while drinking there I’d be fancying that the ghost of the one robbed of his last house were leering at me and reveling in the thought that I’d soon be poor and thirstless as he. Verily the flavor of a drink depends much on the goblet!”
“We may have plenty of miserable fancies, if we only court such; for me, Templar, I prefer to comfort myself by cheerier thoughts; while I drank there, I’d think of the coolings of death’s streams; of her, that at this fountain slaked her body’s thirst and from the chalice of death drank serenely at last. My sword, the gift of my king, after having shed torrents of blood, hangs uselessly at my side. It seems cruel as powerless; ay, ’tis hateful! My mother gave me, onmy departure, better gifts by far; tears, kisses, undying love, and the charge to call on Mary if ever evil befell me. The latter I know not how to do; but still my weak faith, methinks, would be helped to cry ‘Mother’ to God, if I could only stand where that mother stood who won the first love of the infant Jesus, the last anxious thoughts of the God man.”
“Sir Charleroy is unusually pious to-night; but alas, though I’ve been taught to say our church’sLitany, calling on ‘the Virgin most faithful,’ ‘Virgin most merciful,’ ‘Help of the Christian,’ ‘Lady of Victories,’ I can not use those phrases here. Where’s the help, the mercy, the victory now? TheLitany, belongs to England!”
“We are in our present plight because we have won heaven’s neglect through having more vices than graces, probably.”
“Whatever the cause, the mocking disappointment is apparent. It is nigh thirteen hundred years since the Holy son and His mother began proclaiming and exemplifying the White Kingdom here. Now in all this land of theirs, we thirteen, fateful number, alone are left of those who openly own His cause. Yea, and the city where He grew in favor, these nature-blessed plains whose flowers gave Him picture sermons, are all filled with burrowing monsters eternally at war with Him and His.”
“Faith will rest until assured that the Promiser is dead, and that can never be, Sir Knight.”
“My faith staggers at the sights of Nazareth. Chief, look yonder.”
The knights all now called Sir Charleroy chief, when addressing him.
“At what?”
“The ruins!”
“Ah, all that’s left of our Crusader church. They say it was built on the very spot where Mary fell fainting, when she saw the Nazarenes in wrath dragging her son away to cast him down from the precipice to death. But He escaped, though the church since built did not!”
“True; therefore it seems to me that the hand on time’s dial turns backward. This city is filled with creatures having hearts as hard as the limestone walls of the cave-like houses they fittingly inhabit. If Christ and His Mother were again on earth as before, mercy’s ministers, the present inhabitants of Nazareth would surpass His ancient persecutors in the zeal with which they would drag not only Him but His mother to the cliffs.”
“Over the door of yon ruined church, some hand of faith carved the word ‘Victory!’ The word is there yet, and though the hand that carved it is dead, the faith which prompted it hath victory assured it.”
“‘Victory,’ in ruins! A meaningless boast, as it seems to me, Sir Charleroy. Such victory as ours; shadowy and very distant!”
At that moment one of the Templars, who had been secretly praying behind a cactus hedge, drew near and the Hospitaler addressed him:
“Brother, any token?”
“Praise Jehovah! yes, of peace.”
“How came it?”
“In my communings, God brought to my mind how the wondrous Deborah, not far from here, pushed the pusillanimous Barak from his refuge among the pistacas and oaks, from waverings to courage and to glorious victory over God’s foes.”
“A happy thought; ‘the stars on their course fought against Sisera!’”
“Barak was called the ‘thunderbolt,’ but Deborah was the ‘lightning.’ The lightning gave force to the bolt and God to the lightning.”
Sir Charleroy, catching the last sentence, joined in the debate:
“Gentlemen, there is another lesson on the brow of that history; it is, that women, having more trust, cleave closer to God in peril than do men. Men are in a panic when their devices fail; women have fewer devices to fail, hence are less easily confounded. For that reason God sent out our race in pairs.”
“Hermon’s breast holds the last ray of the setting sun,” remarked the Golden Cross.
“And the Transfiguration of Christ is recalled! I think some angel of God is holding the sunlight there for our instruction, now,” exclaimed the chief.
“Our instruction?” queried the Templar. “I do not discern its meaning; campaigning I fear has dulled my brain.”
“The Son of Mary, on yon mount, met Elijah, representative of the prophets, Moses, representative of the law; both called from the deathless land to proclaim the fulfillment of all prophecy and law through His coming passion.”
“And still I question how this applies to us?”
“A Knight of theRed Crossshould easily discern that suffering unto death for truth’s sake is the way, all prophecy declares that a reign of law transforming things to spiritual splendor shall at last come to earth.”
“Ah, Sir Charleroy, the interpretation is entrancing, but why did the glory need to fade into night, and to be followed by Gethsemane and Calvary?”
“Life is but a series of temporary glimpses of the glory that shall be revealed. Night and cloud come and go, yet the sun never dies.”
“But, Sir Charleroy, was it not hard that the loving Immanuel should be forced to bide these pangs though ever pursuing true righteousness?”
“Yea, Templar, but the glory of the Transfiguration came to all that group while Jesus prayed; as the angel hastened to minister when Gethsemane was darkest. These things teach that heaven watches its own, with succor according to want; great light at hand to baffle great darkness and royal answers for anxious prayers!”
“You mean, Sir Charleroy, that we few, surrounded by a sea of enemies, in an inhospitable land, far from home, should despise each despairing thought?”
“Good Templar, I am certain of this, anyway: Suffering for the right has full reward, for after passion as Christ’s, so to His followers there comes the ascension.”
“Amen,” fervently ejaculated several surrounding knights, and Sir Charleroy felt the glow that he felt that time the English bishop blessed him.
As they thus communed, the sun had quietly sunk down into the far-off Mediterranean, flooding the westwith light like molten gold. Doubtless one thought came to each at the sight; for all smiled sadly when one remarked: “TheWestis very beautiful to-night!” They thought with deep yearnings of home. But the darkness quickly drew over the scene and the song of the baleful nightingales began to start forth here and there from thickets which, in the darkness, appeared like plumes of mourning on acres of black velvet. One knight, for a while entranced by the grim, gloomy spectacle, shuddered; then looked up as if to say: “When will the moon rise? the darkness is oppressive!” Another tried to cheer his comrades by crying: “England’s songsters know us and come to sing us into hopefulness!”
“Men, to rest; you’ll need it.” It was Sir Charleroy who spoke. Responsibility made him motherly.
“Let us revel awhile in memories of better days,” replied the Templar.
“But listen; do you not hear afar off something like the moaning of the winds before a storm?”
“What of it? A storm could add little to our misery.”
“The sound you hear is the cry of jackal and wolf; our omens. Forget now all unnerving thoughts of home and steel yourselves to meet hard fortune. For a while rest. Rest is now our wisdom; night, our mother; for a time in safety she will swaddle us within her black garments. And then——”
“Even so, good Sir Charleroy, and I’m thinking this is her last visit to us. She has come, I guess, to lead us to the portals of eternal day.”
“When I say good-night to you, comrades, it will bewith the expectation of next saying good-morning where the wicked cease from troubling,” solemnly said the Golden Cross.
“But,” interrupted the Hospitaler, “while the pulse beats we have a mortgage on time and a duty to plan to live.”
“Bravely said; now tell us how to plan,” exclaimed several knights.
“Merge all our orders into one, for the present; elect a leader, and——” The Hospitaler paused, for he could not guess the needs or course of the future. But the knights quickly acquiesced in the unity of action proposed.
“Who shall lead?” was the next question.
“I nominate,” shouted the Hospitaler, “the one whom we all believe must be under the especial care of the good angels of these places sacred to all revering mother Mary.”
The knights, with one voice, responded, “Sir Charleroy de Griffin, Teutonic Knight of the Order of St. Mary!”
The little band dared their danger for a moment by a spontaneous cheer.
“We have no priest to anoint the chief of the Refugees, but with God to witness, let each who would ratify the choice place hilt to shield, as an oath of service and defense.”
Every hilt rang against Sir Charleroy’s shield, as the Hospitaler ceased speaking.
“Comrades,” said Sir Charleroy, “I thank you for your confidence in this hour when the issue is life or death. Let us seek the God of battles.” The knightsformed a hollow square about their leader, and all kneeled upon the earth.
Their wondering steeds seemed to catch the spirit of their riders, and, drawing near, drooped their heads. For a few moments there was awing silence, and then in deep measured tones the Hospitaler began chanting, “Kyrie Eleison” (Lord have mercy). The companions responded, “Christi Eleison.” Then, amid those scenes of sacred history, the kneeling soldiers, together, and without command, with only the stars for altar-lights, solemnly chanted a portion of the sublime Litany of their church. Galilee never before, nor since, heard a more sincere orison: “Pour forth, we beseech Thee, oh, Lord, Thy grace into our hearts, that we to whom the incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may by His passion and His cross be brought to the glory of His resurrection, through the same Christ, our Lord. Amen.”
As they arose, a Templar spoke: “Companions, if it so please you, put a seal, the seal of the Red Cross Knights, upon our act.” So saying, the knight crossed his feet, then spread out his arms horizontally; similitude of the crucifixion. All reverently imitated the action, meanwhile, their swords being in hand with blades crossing, forming a fence of steel.
“Comrades,” spoke Sir Charleroy, with emotion, “I accept the trust, and vow by Him that gave the single-handed Elijah on yonder far-off wrinkled Carmel, sign by fire, that confounded Baal and its regal hosts, to lead you to liberty and home or to glorious graves.”
“In hoc signo vinces, living or dead,” was the chorused response. Just then the rising moon flooded theirinterlaced swords with light, and, as they glittered, the knights took it for an omen that there was a blessing in the union of their swords.
“Sir Charleroy, I proclaim thee king of Jerusalem; what say you, comrades?” exclaimed a hitherto silent Knight of St. John. Once more every knight’s sword touched the leader’s shield.
“Nobly proclaimed!” remarked the Templar. “When De Lusignan deserted us, ceasing to be kingly, he ceased to be king.”
“Have charity, men,” interrupted their chief; “it takes a world of courage to fall with a falling cause when a way of escape is open.”
“Oh, we’ll have charity; the same that Tancred had for that brave preacher and craven soldier, Hermit Peter; the latter ran from peril and Tancred raced him back. We can not reach Lusignan to whip him to duty, but we can vote him dethroned and dead. All cowards are dead to the brave.”
“But, companions, I must decline the presumptuous title and phantom throne. Jerusalem shall have, to us, but one king; the Son of Mary. For the future, to you, let me be simply Sir Charleroy. Now let us be moving.”
“Whither?” anxiously inquired several knights in a breath.
“Over the valley to the cactus hedges against the limestone cliffs before us, where runs along the great highway from Damascus to Egypt. We shall not need the route to either point, probably; but those hills are full of caves for the living and tombs for the dead.” All obeyed.
“Why so thoughtful?” said the Hospitaler to the Knight of the Golden Cross, who marched along with his cloak partly shielding his face.
“I’m living in the past,” he sententiously answered.
“The past? Ah, to make up by a back journey for an expected briefing of thy future?”
“No, raillery here, Hospitaler. I was just wishing that since we are so near Endor, Saul’s witch would call up some saintly Samuel to tell us where we shall be this time to-morrow.”
“Oh, Golden Cross, know we can best bear the good or evil of the future by seeing it only as it comes; for me, I prefer to think of another place, near us, but having a more helpful incident for the memory of such as we.”
“Dost thou mean Nain?”
“The same. There a dead only son was raised from the bier to comfort a widowed mother.”
“Well said, Hospitaler,” responded Sir Charleroy, “and let us not forget that it was a mother’s tearful prayers that won the working of the miracle.”
“Alas, knight,” sighed the Templar, “we have no mothers to so petition for us here, if we be quenched ere long.”
“Some of us have living mothers who never cease to pray for us, nor will until their breath ceases. In this land, where God appeared through motherhood, I have a strong confidence that our mothers’ prayers, re-enforced by our appealing but unvoiced needs, will move the motherhood of God, if such I may call His tenderest lovings. I’ll trust to-night my mother’s prayers, reaching from England to Heaven and fromthence to here, further than all the sympathy forgetful Europe will vouchsafe us. A nation cheered us to battle, and yet it will never seek for the fragments defeat has left; but the man never lived, no matter what his ill deserts, whom true mother love and eternal God love ever forgot.” After this long address, Sir Charleroy again felt the glow within and the approvings that he felt on the quay when the bishop’s hands were on his head.
“’Tis not in mortals to command success;But we’ll do better, Sempronius; we’ll deserve it.”—Cato.
“’Tis not in mortals to command success;But we’ll do better, Sempronius; we’ll deserve it.”—Cato.
“’Tis not in mortals to command success;But we’ll do better, Sempronius; we’ll deserve it.”
“’Tis not in mortals to command success;
But we’ll do better, Sempronius; we’ll deserve it.”
—Cato.
—Cato.
The fugitives slept, some in the obliviousness of complete fatigue and others restlessly, their minds perturbed by dreams of their impending perils. Dawn summoned all to renewed activity, but its coming was not greeted joyfully by the knights.
“Sir Charleroy,” mournfully spoke a Hospitaler to the former, as they met at the outskirts of the camping place, “our comrade, the Knight of the Holy Sepulcher, made good his escape from this woeful country during the early morning, before dawn, as our comrades were sleeping!”
“Why, impossible!” questioningly responded the chief.
“Alas, ’twas rather impossible for him not to go!”
“I’m in no humor for such petty jesting! See, his steed is there yet,” and Sir Charleroy turned on his heel impatiently as he spoke.
“Pardon, companion, he that departed was borne away by the white charger with black wings!”
“Dead?”
“Mortals say ‘dead’ of such, but it were better to say he is free.”
“Peace to his soul,” fervently spoke Sir Charleroy.
“Ah, knight, thou canst not imagine the peacefulness of his going!”
“But why were we not summoned? We might have consoled him at least; perhaps we might have healed. What was his malady?”
“A poisoned arrow wounded him in the retreat from Acre. He did not realize his peril until the agonies of the end were wracking his body. Then he said, ‘Too late; it’s useless to attempt resistance of the inevitable.’”
“Now this is pitiful—a humiliation of us all. Heavens, Hospitaler! there’s not a knight among us who would not have periled his life in effort in the dying man’s behalf.”
“But he cautioned me against disturbing any one on his account. ‘Poor men,’ he said, ‘they’ll need all the rest they can get for the struggles of the day to come.’ Only once did he seem to yearn for a remedy, and that time he spoke mostly as one dreaming. I remember his every word—‘I wish I could bathe these hot and bleeding wounds in the all-healing nards said to exude exhaustlessly from the image of the Virgin Most Merciful at Damascus.’ I roused him, then, with an appeal for permission to summon thee, but he forbade me.”
“Thou shouldst have overridden all protests of his! By my tokens! I’d have emulated faithful Elenora, who sucked the poison from the dagger stab given herspouse, our knightly Prince Edward, by the would-be assassin at Acre.”
“I could not resist him; his face shone in the moonlight with heavenly brightness; mine was covered with tears. Oh, chief, the dying man spoke like an angel. Once he said: ‘It is sweet to go out here, nigh where the resurrection angel, Gabriel, gave Mary the glad tidings that her humanity was to join with the Good Father to bring forth One capable of sounding each human sorrow here and hereafter. He overcomes the dread last enemy of all our race!’ I watched as he fixed his dying gaze upon the golden cross he wore; his last words still fill and inflame my soul: ‘Brother, good-night—say this to each for me. I feel great darkness creeping in to possess this broken, weary body. It comes to stay, but my soul moves forth out of its dungeon. I see gates most lofty, all glorious, and oh, so near! They open to an eternal day.’ Then he breathed his last, murmuring tenderly: ‘I’m going; good-night; good-morning!’” The Hospitaler ended his recital with a great sob, then burying his face in his cloak, was silent.
Presently the knights formed a hollow square about an old tomb in the hillside. The Hospitaler supported tenderly the head of the dead comrade in his lap. On the naked breast of the corpse lay the many-pointed golden cross of the Knights of the Sepulcher, while round the body was wrapped a Templar’s banner, with its significant emblem, two riders on one horse; symbol of friendship and necessity.
“Let the one who received the dying prayer of our brave companion speak,” said Sir Charleroy. Theknights all knelt, and the Hospitaler still reverently supporting the head of the dead, spoke. “Knight of Christ, sleep; the clamors of war shall no more disturb thee. The dead at least are just and merciful. Israelite, Mohammedan and Christian may lie together in these vales, reconciled at last. They that would not share a loaf to save life to one another, in death share quietly all they have, their beds. The ashes of the long sleepers have no contentions; here are no crowdings of each other; no misunderstandings; no alarms. Sleep, soldier, thy worthy warfare finished; thy cause appealed to the Judge of All! Sleep and leave us to battle on ’mid perils and pain. Sleep thy body, while thy soul fathoms the mysteries to us inscrutable. Rest now, and leave us here a little longer to wonder why it is that human creatures must needs inhumanly oppose and slay each other for the enthroning of Truth, the friend, the quest of all! Sleep, and leave us to wonder why death and conflict are the openers of the gates of life and peace.” Some of those kneeling wept, but they were too much depressed to speak. Quietly they laid the body within its resting place; quietly they sealed up the tomb’s entrance. Then they mounted their steeds at their chief’s command.
“There are but twelve of us left; a lucky number. Perhaps the breaking of the fateful spell believed to follow the number thirteen, was death’s beneficence!” It was the Templar who so spoke.
“It is said, Templar,” responded Charleroy, “that our Mary, in her girlhood, was escorted ever by an invisible heavenly guard, a thousand strong. In the guardthere were twelve palm-bearing angels of rare splendor, commissioned to reveal charity.”
“A worthy companionship, chief!”
“I’m inclined to pray heaven to send again to these parts the beautiful twelve, to assure us good fortune and victory.”
“Surely the prayers of us all join thine, Sir Charleroy; but methinks we have forgotten how to pray aright, or heaven has forgotten to answer us. We have been praying and fighting for months only to find at last that our prayers and our battlings are alike vain. I fear there are no palm-bearing angels at hand.”
The horsemen slowly wended their way back to the hill-top, overlooking Nazareth, on which they first paused the night before. Again they halted to admire the prospect, as well as to look for a route of safe retreat. Nazareth was astir. The little band on the hill could hear the morning trumpeters calling the Moslem to worship.
“Gentlemen,” said the leader of the band on the hill, “it is wisdom to divide into two parties, and make for the sea by different routes. At Cæsarea we may find some vessels with which to leave these to us fateful shores. If we meet the foe anywhere, the odds against us now are so great that death or enslavement must be the result. Perhaps if there be two parties one may escape.” The knights paused about their leader a few moments in affectionate debate; all opposing at first the plan that was to scatter them, but all, finally, convinced that it was the highest wisdom to go on their ways apart. Lots were cast by the eleven, De Griffin not participating. Four weregrouped in one party and seven in the other by the result.
“I’ll join the weaker party, remembering the five wounds of Jesus,” said Sir Charleroy, reining his steed to the smaller company. A moment after he continued: “Now, good souls, away with grief; part we must; here and now. May God go tenderly with the seven, a covenant number. Now make your wills; then a brief farewell; then use the spur.”
“Wills?” said a Templar, and they all smiled in a sickly way at the word. “We knights, boasting our poverty, our holding of all we have in community, know nothing of will-making.”
“True, the pelf we each have is small enough; a few keep-sakes, our arms and such like; but our love is something. Let’s will that, and if we’ve aught to say before we die, we’d better say it now. There is work ahead, and plenty of it. There will be no time forante-mortemstatement when we meet the cimeters of the Crescent.” So spoke Sir Charleroy. He continued, “My slayer will take good care of my jewels.” He commenced writing upon a bit of parchment, using for rest the pommel of his saddle. In a few moments he paused.
“Wilt thou read thine, that we may know how to make ours, chief?” inquired one near him.
“A message to my mother; that’s all.”
“Enough; that’s sacred.”
“Yes—but—no. Misery has knit us into one family. I feel to confide.” So saying, he read his writing, omitting only the portion that recited their recent vicissitudes:—
“And now, beloved mother, we turn from Nazareth toward the sea with only a forlorn hope of reaching it. I long to meet thee, but the longing must, I fear, content itself in reaching out my heart’s best love across the distant ocean toward thyself. It is all I can give in return for the mysterious consciousness that thine is a constant presence. My memory teems with records of my life-long ingratitude toward thyself, that gave me birth and all a loving heart could bestow, and now I’m tasting bitterest remorse for all those selfish days of mine. I wish I could recall their acts. Take these words as my request for pardon. I shall bind this little parchment scrap in my belt in a vague hope that some way, some time, it may reach thee. If it do, remember it is sent to bear to thee, beloved mother, the assurance that thy once wayward boy remembers now, as he has for months, as the brightest, best, most exalting and blessed things of all his life, thy loving words, thy patient trust in him and all thy pious exhortations. I thank God now for all my trials and perils. They have brought me to full prizing of thy goodness and near to the religion thou dost profess.”
“And now, beloved mother, we turn from Nazareth toward the sea with only a forlorn hope of reaching it. I long to meet thee, but the longing must, I fear, content itself in reaching out my heart’s best love across the distant ocean toward thyself. It is all I can give in return for the mysterious consciousness that thine is a constant presence. My memory teems with records of my life-long ingratitude toward thyself, that gave me birth and all a loving heart could bestow, and now I’m tasting bitterest remorse for all those selfish days of mine. I wish I could recall their acts. Take these words as my request for pardon. I shall bind this little parchment scrap in my belt in a vague hope that some way, some time, it may reach thee. If it do, remember it is sent to bear to thee, beloved mother, the assurance that thy once wayward boy remembers now, as he has for months, as the brightest, best, most exalting and blessed things of all his life, thy loving words, thy patient trust in him and all thy pious exhortations. I thank God now for all my trials and perils. They have brought me to full prizing of thy goodness and near to the religion thou dost profess.”
The reader paused, and the companion knights at once began begging him to inscribe messages for them each, he being the only one in all the company having the priestly gift of the pen. Most of them said, “To my mother” or “To my sister, write;” but one blushed as he said, “I’ve no mother nor sister.” His comrades rallied him at once: “Name her, the other only woman!”
“A heart as brave as thine, knight,” said the Hospitaler to the blushing youth, “has a queen on its throne, somewhere.”
The youth blushed more and drew away a little.
“Only a lover,” said the Templar. “Lovers, absent, assuage their pinings by new mating! They forget; mothers never do. Write for us, Sir Charleroy.”
The blush of the youth deepened to anger, evincing his heart’s high protest against any hint of doubt being aimed at his queen; but he was self-restraining, silent. “I’ll not reveal her by defense even,” was his whispered thought.
The writing was finished. “Farewell! Forward.”
The chief suited the action to the commands, and soon his steed was dashing swiftly away with its rider, followed by the others of his party. The seven departed toward Nain; perhaps it was an ominous choice, for their route led them toward the cave of incantation, where Endor’s witch called up for Saul the shade of Samuel. Most likely the words of the dead prophet to the haunted warrior, “To-morrow thou shalt be with me,” would have told the fate of the seven that morning fittingly, for they were never heard from by any of their earthly friends.
“Oh, that many may knowThe end of this day’s business, ere it come;But it sufficeth that the day will end,And then the end is known.”—Julius Cæsar.
“Oh, that many may knowThe end of this day’s business, ere it come;But it sufficeth that the day will end,And then the end is known.”—Julius Cæsar.
“Oh, that many may knowThe end of this day’s business, ere it come;But it sufficeth that the day will end,And then the end is known.”
“Oh, that many may know
The end of this day’s business, ere it come;
But it sufficeth that the day will end,
And then the end is known.”
—Julius Cæsar.
—Julius Cæsar.
A tedious ride brought the five knights nigh Shunem, the City of Elijah.
“We’ll find no prophet’s chamber here for such as we,” remarked Sir Charleroy.
“Perhaps,” said a comrade, “we may by force or cajoling find a breakfast; a cake or cruse of oil.”
“Anyhow,” replied the chief, “we must try for a little food. We can neither fight nor flee with gaunt hunger on our flanks. Who knows, after all, but that we may happen on a humane being in these parts.”
“Well, good captain, if we should find a Shulamite, black, but comely, she might be as loving to thee as that one of old was to Solomon, although——”
The sentence was broken off by the interrupting command of Sir Charleroy, “Men, quick to cover; to the lemon-tree grove on the right!”
A glance back revealed a host of armed men behind the knights.
“All saints defend!” cried the Templar, as the little band wheeled toward the refuge.
The tale of the battle to the death that ensued, is quickly told.
Sir Charleroy, though he had fought with reckless bravery, as one hotly pursuing death, alone survived. A bludgeon blow felled him; when he recovered consciousness, he beheld standing by his side a gorgeously bedecked Moslem. The clangor of the conflict was over; the blood in which he weltered, and the vicious eyes that watched him, were all that reminded the knight of what had recently transpired. Presently the latter addressed the one that stood guard:
“Why is the infidel so tardy in finishing his work?”
“Is the Crusader in a hurry to reach night?” sententiously replied the man of gorgeous trappings.
“He would like to stay long enough to execute a murderer—the chief of thy horde.”
“My horde? Thou knowest me?”
“Oh, yes, ‘Azrael, Angel of Death,’ thy minions call thee; but I defy thee as I loathe thee.”
The chief’s brow darkened; his sword rose in air, and he exclaimed: “Hercules was healed of a serpent bite, ages ago, at Acre; Islamism in the same place recently; I must finish the hydra by cutting off thy hissing head, Christian.”
Sir Charleroy steadily met his captor’s gaze, eye to eye, and was silent.
The chief paused; then lowering his sword, toyed its point against the cross on the prostrate man’s breast.
“Bitter tongue, thou dost worship a death sign; dost thou so love death?”
“Death befriends those who wear that sign in truth; this is my comfort standing now at the rim of earth’s last night.”
“Thy bright red blood and unwrinkled brow bespeak youth, the power to enjoy life. Youth and such power is ever a prayer for more time; thou liest to thyself and me by professing to seek thy end.”
“How wonderful! The ‘Angel of Death’ is a soul-reader as well as a murderer!” bitterly rejoined Sir Charleroy.
“Well, then, refute me! Here’s thy greasy, blood-stained sword; now go, by thine own hands, if thou darest, to judgment.”
“Trusting God, I may defy thee; yet not hurry Him!”
“I like the Christian’s metal. I might let him live.”
“Life would be a mean gift now; a painful departure from the threshold of Paradise, to renew weary pilgrimages.”
“I may be merciful.”
“I do not believe it.”
“Thou shalt.”
“When I believe in the tenderness of jackals and tigers, in the sincerity of transparent hypocrisy, I’ll praise the mercy of Azrael.”
“Our holy Koran reveals a bridge finer than a hair, sharper than a sword, beset with thorns, laid over hell. From that bridge, with an awful plunge, the wicked go eternally down; over it safely, swiftly, the holy pass to happiness. Art ready to try that bridge?”
“Ready for the land of forgetfulness; no swords nor crescents are there.”
“No, thou wouldst only reach Orf, the partition of hell, where the half-saints tarry; thy bravery merits that much; but I’ll teach thee to reach better realms.”
“Turk, Mameluke, ’tis fiendish to prejudge a dying soul; leave judgment to God, and share now all that is within thy power, my body, with thy fit partners, the vultures!”
“A living slave is worth more to me than a dead knight; I’ve an humor to let thee live.”
“Oh, most merciful hypocrite! I did not think thou couldst tell the truth so readily; but let me, I beseech thee, be the dead knight.”
“What if I save thy life, teach thee the puissant faith of Islam, give thee leadership, and with it opportunity to win entrance to that highest Paradise, whose gateway is overshadowed by swords of the brave? There thou mayest dwell forever with Allah and the adolescent houris.”
“Enough; unless thou dost aim to torture me! I’m a Knight of Saint Mary, and thou full well knowest the measure of my vows; how throughout this land my Order has warred against thy hateful polygamy, thy gilded lusts here, thy Harem heaven hereafter! Ye thrive by luring to your standards men aflame now with the fire that burns such souls at last in black perdition. I tell thee to thy teeth, thou and thine are living devils. But ye war against the wisdom of the world and the law of God; though triumphing now, ye will rot amid your riots and victories.”
The chief’s face grew black as night for an instant, but recovering himself, he continued, sarcastically at first, then with the zeal of a proselyter:
“Speak low, thou, last dying vestige of a wan faith! Thou mightst make my solemn followers yell with ridiculing laughter! I tell thee of life and of a faith as natural as nature herself. Listen; there is for the brave and faithful a Paradise whose rivers are white as milk as odoriferous as musk. There are sights for the eye, fetes most delicious and music never ceasing to ravish; these lure the brilliantly-robed faithful to the black-eyed daughters of Pleasure. One look at them would reward such as we for a world-life of pain; and the children of the prophet’s faith are given the eternities to companion these splendid creatures whose forms created of musk know no infirmity, but survive, always, as adolescent fountains. The heaven of Islamism is eternal youth, eternally luxurious.”
“It befits the Angel of Death to gild a deformed hell with bedazzling words. Thou and thine glorify lust, and thy heaven, like thy harem, is but a brothel after all. Now let me blast thy gorgeous charnel-house with the lightning of God’s Word: ‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God!’”
Sir Charleroy had raised himself up as he was speaking; now he fell back, exhausted. He again felt the glow in his heart that he felt on the quay when the English bishop blessed him; but it seemed more real now than then, and the approvings of conscience some way came with rebukes that caused tears to flow. He felt something akin to real penitence for a life that had not been always up to the ideal that this debate had caused him to exalt. As he fell back he closed his eyes and turned his face from his captor; the act was a prayer to be helped to shut out of his mind the pictureof gilded lust depicted by the false teacher that stood by. For a few moments the wounded man was left to his own thoughts, and then his heart went out toward home crying like a sick or lost child in the night, for “Mother!” Once more he returned to that duality of existence which comes when one enters into personal introspections. There seemed to be two Sir Charleroys, one writing the history of the other, and the writer was recording such estimates as these: “As he lay there, nigh death, he drew near to God. He had once been a rover, seeking the wildest pleasures of the European capitals; but meeting passion, presented as the ultimate of life, for all eternity, his soul recoiled from it and he became the herald of purity. Once he had friends, wealth and physical prowess; but he squandered them as a prodigal; when he lay bleeding, powerless in body, amid strangers, a slave, he rose to the majesty of a moral giant.” The Sir Charleroy that was thus reviewed was comforted, and he stood off from the picture in imagination to admire it, as one standing before a mirror. Just then he thought of his mother and Mary, his ideal, standing on either side of him, before the same presentment. It might have been a dream; but he believed they smiled through tears, pressed their beating hearts to his and upheld him by their arms with tenderness and strength. His captor left him for a few moments only, undisturbed. At a sign from Azrael, he was soon carried away by a guard; the parley was ended and he that had so bravely spoken doomed to confront that that is to the vigorous mind the worst of happenings, uncertainty. For months the captive mechanically submitted to the fortunes of theSheik’s caravan; in health improving; in spirit depressed, numbed. The knight had constantly before him three grim certainties, escape impossible; rebellion useless; each day hope darkened by further departure from the sea. The captive’s treatment from the Sheik was not unkind. The latter met him by times with a sort of courtly condescension, varied only by an occasional penetrating, questioning glance. They had little conversation, yet the Sheik’s looks plainly said: “When thou art subdued, sue for favors; they’ll be granted.” De Griffin nursed his pride and firmness and prevented all familiarity on Azrael’s part. The latter was puzzled sometimes, sometimes angered; but he was too polite to show his feelings. For months the only conversation between the two alert, strong men might be summed up in these words on the Sheik’s part: “Slave, freedom and heaven are sweet.” “Knight, Allah knows only the followers of the Prophet as friends.” On the knight’s part a look of scorn or an expression of disgust was the sole reply.
In the Sheik’s retinue was another captive, a Jew. He was constantly near the knight; for being more fully trusted than the latter, the Sheik had made the Israelite in part the custodian of the Christian. The knight discerned the relationship very quickly; though both Jew and chief endeavored to conceal it. Sir Charleroy, at the first, treated his companion captive with loathing and resentment, as a spy. After a time, the “sphinx, eyes open, mouth shut,” as Azrael described Sir Charleroy, deemed it wise and politic to make the Jew his ally. The resolution once formed, he found many circumstances to aid in bridging thegulf that separated the captive and his guard; the cultured Teutonic leader and the wandering Israelite. They both hated the same man, their captor; both loathed the religion he was covertly aiming to lure them to; both were anxious for freedom. They gave voice to these feelings when together, alone, and ere long sympathy made them friends. The next step was natural and easy; the stronger mind took the leadership of the two, and Sir Charleroy became teacher; his keeper became his pupil andprotégé.
The twain one day, after this change of relation, walked together conversing, on a hill overlooking Jericho, by which place the Sheik’s caravan was encamped.
“Ichabod, thou wearest a fitting name.”
“I suppose so, since my mother gave it. But why say so now?”
“Ichabod, ‘glory departed,’ thou art like thy people—despoiled.”
“Oh, Lord! how long?” piously exclaimed the Jew.
“Till Shiloh comes!”
“Verily it is so written,” was the Jew’s reply.
“But He has come, Israelite!”
“Where?” the startled Jew questioned, drawing back as if he expected his, to him mysterious, companion to throw back his tunic and declare: “I am he!”
“In the world and in my heart.”
“Ah, Sir Knight, Israel’s desolation refutes all that.”
“Jew, thine eyes are veiled. I’ll teach thee to see Him yet.”
The Jew was puzzled.
The twain fell into prolonged converse, and then in that lone place the Crusader waxed eloquent, preachingChrist and Him crucified to one of Abraham’s seed.
When the two captives descended to their tents, each was conscious of a new, peculiar joy. One had the joy of having proclaimed exalted truth, faithfully, to the almost persuading of his hearer; the other was moving about in the growing delight and wonder of a new dawning faith.
At frequent intervals Ichabod besought the knight to take him “to the mountain.”
Each visit thither was a delight to the new inquirer.
On such a journey one day spoke Ichabod: “Christian, I am consumed with anxiety to hear thy words and another anxiety lest they do me harm. I am thinking, thinking, by day, and, what little time my thoughts permit sleep, I’m filled with wondrous dreams! I fear to lose my old faith, and yet it becomes like Dead Sea apples under the light of this new way. So new, so infatuating. None I’ve met, and I’ve met many, ever so moved me. Why, knight, I’ve traversed half the world; sometimes as wealth’s favorite, sometimes of necessity in misfortune; I’ve seen the faiths of Egypt and India in their homes, and walked amid the temples of great Rome, but with abiding contempt for all not Israelitish. Not so this creed of the knight affects me.”
“And for good reason; I offer thee the true, new, refined and final Judaism!”
“It seems so, and yet I tremble. I dare not doubt; that’s sin; but here’s the puzzle that harasses me: What if, in doubting these things I’m now told, I be doubting the very truth, the Jewish faith!”
“Ichabod, thy heart has been a buried seed awaiting the spring. It has come.”
“Oh, knight, I’m trusting my dear soul to thee. As a dog his master, a maid her lover, so blindly I follow thee. I can not go back: I can not pause nor can I go onward alone. I’m in the misery of a joy too great to be borne, almost, and yet too much my master to be given up. Oh, knight, thou art so wise, so strong! Steady me; hold me up! I can only pray and adjure thee to be sincere with me; only sincere; that’s all; as sincere as if thou wert ministering to the ills of a sick man battling death.”
The child of Abraham, with a sudden movement, flung his arms with all vehemence about Sir Charleroy. The East and the West embracing, truth leading, love triumphant.
“Poor Ichabod, if thou hadst no soul, thy clingings and yearnings would bind me to thee faithfully. Thou hast tried to give me charge over that that is immortal. A Higher Being has it in loving trust; were it not so, I’d turn in dread from thy confiding!”
“Is mine so bad a soul, master?”
“Indeed, no. Its preciousness to Him that created it, is what would make me dread its partial custody.”
“Thou’lt help me, master, now?”
“For three objects I’ll willingly die; my mother; our lady, and the soul of one who abandons himself, as thou, to my poor pilotage.”
“Then, thou strangely lovest me. Oh, this but more persuades me that thy faith is right; it makes thee so good to a stranger, a slave, a hated Jew!”
“But then we are so apart and so unlike each other!”
“No, Jew, I want to show that humanity is one. The very creed I’m trying to teach thee and would fain have all thy race, ay, all mankind fully understand, is full of love, joy, peace. These follow it as naturally as the flower the stem, the humming the flying wing made to fly and be musical.”
“Oh, my dear light, with thee I’m in joy and wilderment. Thy presence seems to bring me hosts of crowned truths, all seeking to enter my being. I feel like a tired runner ready to faint when thou’rt absent, but when thou talkest the tired runner is plunged into a cooling ocean, whose circling waves, as it were charged with the stimulus of tempered lightnings, glowing with a million rainbows, overwhelm, lift up and rest him. I’m floating thereon now!”
“Thy strange fancies make me wonder, Ichabod.”
“Wonder; why my strength dies from over wonder. I was ill for hours yesterday. Light to my sweat-blinded, feverish eyes, all calm and healing, comes when I yield to thy will; but still all my joy is haunted by ghosts which rise in day-mare troops, pointing rebukingly to labyrinths into which I seem to be pushed. I sometimes wonder if I’m seeing real spirits or going mad.”
“Dost pray, Jew?”
“I dare not live without praying!”
“Then tell the All Pitiful what thou hast this day told to me. He loves the sincere, down to the deepest hell of doubt, and from it all, at last, will lead tumulted souls safely. An honest doubt is a real prayer, well winged; quickly it reaches heaven, at whose portal it dies to rise again all peace.”