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 débris 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 commandof 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 headsa 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 itslarge 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 fromtheir 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 protectingbranches? 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."
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 débris, 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 tothe 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 itselfcompletely 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, drewenergy 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 stillleft 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, Iam 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 theroute 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 committedby 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 Plouernelhad 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, disarmedand 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 headof 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 burningmist 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.
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 débris 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 thewhiteness 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 debauché 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 bythe 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 wenchescried 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."
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 weredisplayed Phœnician 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 thegold 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 insurethe 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 thegames 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!"