“The Lord is on my side; I will not fear what can man do unto me.”
Psalm cxviii. 6.
A summer-day in Syria was rapidly drawing toward its close, as a handful of European cavalry, easily recognised by their flat-topped helmets, cumbrous hauberks, and chargers sheathed like their riders, in plate and mail, were toiling their weary way through the deep sand of the desert, scorched almost to the heat of molten lead by the intolerable glare of an eastern sun. Insignificant in numbers, but high of heart, confident from repeated success, elated with enthusiastic valor, and inspiriting sense of a holy cause, they followed the guidance of their leader, one of the best and most tried lances of the temple, careless whither, and secure of triumph; their steel armor glowing like burnished gold, their lance-heads flashing in the level rays of the setting orb, and the party-colored banner of the Beauseant hanging motionless in the still atmosphere.
Before them lay an interminable waste of bare and dusty plain, broken into long swells succeeding each other in monotonous regularity, though occasionally varied by stunted patches of thorny shrubs and dwarf palm-trees. As they wheeled round one of these thickets, their commander halted suddenly at the sight of some fifty horsemen, whose fluttering garb and turbaned116 crowns, as well as the springy pace of their Arab steeds, proclaimed them natives of the soil, winding along the bottom of the valley beneath him, with the stealthy silence of prowling tigers. Although the enemy nearly trebled his own force in numerical power, without a moment’s hesitation Albert of Vermandois arrayed his little band, and before the infidels had even discovered his presence, much less drawn a blade, or concentrated their scattered line, the dreaded war-cry rung upon their ears—“Ha! Beauseant! for the temple! for the temple!” and down thundered the irresistible charge of the western crusaders on their unguarded flank. Not an instant did the Saracens withstand the brunt of the Norman lance; they broke away on all sides, leaving a score of their companions stretched to rise no more on the bloody plain. Scarcely, however, had the victors checked their blown horses, or reorganized their phalanx, disordered by the hot struggle, when the distant clang of cymbal, horn, and kettle-drum mingled with the shrill lelies of the heathen sounding in every direction, announced that their march had been anticipated, their route beset, themselves surrounded. Hastily taking possession of the vantage-ground afforded by an abrupt hillock, and dismissing the lightest of his party to ride for life to the Christian camp, and demand immediate aid, Albert awaited the onset with the stern composure which springs from self-possession. A few minutes sufficed to show the Christians the extent of their embarrassment, and the imminence of their peril. Three heavy masses of cavalry were approaching them from as many different quarters; their gaudy turbans, gilded arms, and waving pennons of a hundred hues, blazing in marked contrast to the stern and martial simplicity of the iron soldiers of the west. To the quick eye of Albert it was instantly evident that their hope consisted in protracting the conflict till the arrival of succor; and even this hope was diminished by the unwonted velocity with117 which the Mohammedans hurried to the attack. It seemed as if they also were aware that, in order to conquer, they must conquer quickly; for, contrary to their usual mode of fighting, they charged resolutely upon the very lances of the motionless Christians, who, in a solid circle, opposed their mailed breasts in firm array to their volatile antagonists. Fiercely, however, as they charged, their lighter coursers recoiled before the bone and weight of the European war-steeds. The lances of the crusaders were shivered in the onset; but to the thrust of these succeeded the deadly sweep of the twohanded swords, flashing above the cimeters of the infidel with the sway of some terrific engine. Time after time the eastern warriors rushed on, time after time they retreated, like the surf from some lonely rock on which it has wasted its thunders in vain. At length they changed their plan, and wheeling in rapid circles, poured their arrows in as fast, and for a time as fruitlessly, as the snowstorm of a December day. On they came again, right upon the point where Vermandois was posted, headed by a tall chieftain, distinguished no less by his gorgeous arms than by his gallant bearing. Rising in his stirrups, when at a few paces distance, he hurled his long javelin full in the face of the crusader. Bending his crest to the saddle-bow, as the dart passed harmlessly over him, Albert cast his massive battle-axe in return. The tremendous missile rustled past the chief at whom it was aimed, and smote his shield-bearer to the earth, at the very moment when an arrow pierced the templar’s charger through the eyeball to the brain. The animal, frantic with the pain, bounded forward and rolled lifeless, bearing his rider with him to the ground; yet even in that last struggle the stern knight clave the turbaned leader down to the teeth before he fell. Five hundred horse dashed over him—his array was broken—his companions were hewn from their saddles, even before their commander was snatched from beneath the trampling118 hoofs, disarmed, fettered, and reserved for a doom to which the fate of his comrades had been a boon of mercy. Satisfied with their success, and aware that a few hours at the farthest must bring up the rescue from the Christian army, the Saracens retreated as rapidly as they had advanced; all night long they travelled with unabated speed toward their inaccessible fastnesses, in the recesses of their wild mountains. Arrived at their encampment, the prisoner was cast into a dungeon hewn from the living rock. Day after day rolled heavily on, and Albert lay in utter darkness, ignorant of his destiny, unvisited by any being except the swart and bearded savage who brought the daily pittance, scarcely sufficient for the wants of his wretched existence.
Albert of Vermandois, a Burgundian youth of high nobility, and yet more exalted renown, had left his native land stung almost to madness by the early death of her to whom he had vowed his affections, and whose name he had already made “glorious by his sword,” from the banks of the Danube to the pillars of Hercules. He had bound the cross upon his breast, he had mortified all worldly desires, all earthly passions, beneath the strict rule of his order. While yet in the flush and pride of manhood, before a gray hair had streaked his dark locks, or a single line wrinkled his lofty brow, he had changed his nature, his heart, his very being; he had attained a height of dignity and fame scarcely equalled by the best and noblest warriors of the temple. The vigor of his arm, the vast scope of his political foresight, no less than the unimpeached rigor of his morals, had long rendered him a glory to his brotherhood, a cause of terror and an engine of defeat to the Saracen lords of the Holy Land. Many a league had been formed to overpower, many a dark plot hatched to inveigle him; but so invariably had he borne down all odds in open warfare before his irresistible lance, so certainly had he hurled back all 119secret treasons with redoubled vengeance on the heads of the schemers, that he was almost deemed the possessor of some cabalistic spell, framed for the downfall and destruction of the sons of Islam.
Deep were the consultations of the infidel leaders concerning the destiny of their formidable captive. The slaughter actually wrought by his hand had been so fearful, the ravages produced among their armies by his policy so unbounded, that a large majority were in favor of his instant execution; nor could human ingenuity devise, or brute cruelty perform, more hellish methods of torture than were calmly discussed in that infuriate assembly.
It was late on the third day of his captivity, when the hinges of his dungeon-grate creaked, and a broader glare streamed through the aperture than had hitherto disclosed the secrets of his prisonhouse. The red light streamed from a lamp in the grasp of a dark figure—an imaum, known by his high cap of lambskin, his loose black robes, his parchment cincture, figured with Arabic characters, and the long beard that flowed even below his girdle in unrestrained luxuriance. A negro, bearing food of a better quality, and the beverage abhorred by the prophet, the forbidden juice of the grape, followed—his ivory teeth and the livid circles of his eyes glittering with a ghastly whiteness in the clear lamp-light. He arranged the unaccustomed dainties on the rocky floor: the slave withdrew. The priest seated himself so that the light should reveal every change of the templar’s features, while his own were veiled in deep shadow.
“Arise, young Nazarene,” he said, “arise and eat, for to-morrow thou shalt die. Eat, drink, and let thy soul be strengthened to bear thy doom; for as surely as there is one God, and one prophet, which is Mohammed, so surely is the black wing of Azrael outstretched above thee!”
120 “It is well,” was the unmoved reply. “I am a consecrated knight, and how should a templar tremble?—a Christian, and how should a follower of Jesus fear to die?”
“My brother hath spoken wisely, yet is his wisdom but folly. Truly hast thou said, ‘It is well to die;’ for is it not written that the faithful and the yaoor must alike go hence? But is it the same thing for a warrior to fall amid the flutter of banners and the flourish of trumpets—which are to the strong man even as the breath of his nostrils, or as the mild shower in seedtime to the thirsty plain—and to perish by inches afar from his comrades, surrounded by tribes to whom the very name of his race is a by-word and a scorn?”
“Now, by the blessed light of heaven!” cried the indignant soldier, “rather shouldst thou say a terror and a ruin; for when have the dogs endured the waving of our pennons or the flash of our armor? But it skills not talking—leave me, priest, for I abhor thy creed, as I despise thy loathsome impostor!”
For a short space the wise man of the tribes was silent; he gazed intently on the countenance of his foeman, but not a sign of wavering or dismay could his keen eye trace in the stern and haughty features. “Allah Acbar,” he said at length; “to God all things are possible: would the Christian live?”
“All men would live, and I am but a man,” returned the knight; “yet, praise be to Him where all praise is due, I have never shrunk from death in the field, nor can he fright me on the scaffold. If my Master has need of his servant, he who had power to deliver Israel from bondage, and Daniel from the jaws of the lion, surely he shall deliver my soul from the power of the dog. And if he has appointed for me the crown of martyrdom, it shall ne’er be said that Albert of Vermandois was deaf to the will of the God of battles and the Lord of hosts.”
“The wise man hath said,” replied the slow, musical notes of the priest, in strange contrast to the fiery zeal of the prisoner—“the wise man hath said, ‘Better is the cottage that121 standeth firm than the tower which tottereth to its fall.’ Will my brother hear reason? Cast away the cross from thy breast, bind the turban upon thy brow, and behold thou shalt be as a prince among our people!”
“Peace, blasphemer! I spit at thee—I despise, I defy thee! I, a worshipper of the living Jehovah, shall I debase my............