The Pilgrim's Shell; Or, Fergan the Quarryman: A Tale from the Feudal Times

"Give up all your goods to the Church, remain poor as Job, the Church will then intercede for your salvation," replied the legate, issuing his orders to his deacon to set fire to the pyre.

Immediately, walking almost without danger over the length of the path that crossed the paling, hidden by the height of the flames kindled at the four sides of the pyre, Peter Barthelmy seemed in the eyes of the credulous multitude actually to traverse the lake of fire. The serf saw, across a thick cloud of smoke that helped to increase the illusion, Peter Barthelmy, looking as if he was wading through flames up to the hip, run rapidly across the full length of the pyre, from which he emerged again brandishing his lance. The crowd, blind and fanatic, clapped their hands and shouted: "A miracle! A miracle!" Shocked at the impudence of the friar, who so shamelessly imposed upon the credulity of those poor people, Fergan decided to administer to him a stinging lesson. Affecting to yield to religious enthusiasm, he cried out: "Peter Barthelmy is a saint, a great saint! Whoever can secure the smallest bit of his clothing, or of his blessed body, even if but one hair, will be delivered of all ills!" The mob received Fergan's suggestion with fanatic approval. The file of soldiers, that held the multitude far enough back from the pyre, was broken through, and the most maniacal of these fanatics rushed upon Peter Barthelmy at the moment when, leaving the pyre a few steps behind him, he was brandishing his lance. An incredible scene ensued thereupon, related by Baudry, archbishop of Dole, an eye-witness of the occurrence, as follows in his "History of the Capture of Jerusalem:"

"When Peter Barthelmy emerged from the pyre with his holy lance, the crowd rushed upon him and trampled him under foot, each wishing to touch him and carry off a piece of his shirt. He received several wounds in the legs. Bits of flesh were cut from his body. His ribs were knocked in. His spine was fractured. He would, in our opinion, have died on the spot, had not Raymond, seigneur of Pelet, an illustrious cavalier, quickly gathered a platoon of soldiers, thrown himself with them into the midst of the mob, and, at the risk of his own life, saved poor Peter Barthelmy."

After this rude lesson given the cheat, Fergan approached the group of soldiers that were transporting the contriver of miracles in a dying state to a neighboring house. "The accursed brutes! The savages!" murmured the Marseilles priest, gasping for breath: "Have you ever seen such bedeviled rascals! The idea of wishing to turn me into relics!"

"It is but a condign punishment for the besotted state of mind that, with infamous calculation, you plunge these wretched people in," said Fergan leaning over Barthelmy. The Marseillan turned around with a sudden start, but the serf had disappeared in the crowd, and passed to the other side of the pyre, now fully ablaze. At one of its corners was Azenor, chained to the stake. Her feet rested on the tablet which the flames began to lick. A few steps from the victim, on his knees among the priests and joining them in their mortuary songs, crouched the Duke of Aquitaine, from time to time crying amid sobs: "Lord! Cleanse me of my sins! May my repentance and the just punishment of this unclean Jewess earn grace for me!"

"Ah, William!" cried out the condemned woman with a voice still strong and penetrating, "I feel the heat of the flames. They are about to reduce my body to ashes. These flames are less consuming than those of jealousy. Yesterday, driven to extremity, I made certain of my vengeance. A few instants of suffering will rid me of life, and your credulous stupidity avenges me. Look at yourself now, brilliant Duke of Aquitaine, the sport of priests, your implacable enemies, and the dupe of those who laugh at your imbecile fears! If there is a hell we shall meet there."

"Silence, you infamous and unclean beast!" cried out the legate of the Pope, "the flames that envelop you are as nothing to the everlasting fires where you are to burn through all eternity. A curse upon your execrable race, that crucified the Saviour of the world!"

"A curse upon the Jews! Death to the Jews! Glory to God in heaven and to his priests on earth!" shouted the spectators.

Suddenly, heart-rending screams rose above the din. Azenor the Pale, writhed with pain under her iron fetters as the flames, reaching her limbs, set her robe and long hair on fire. Presently the stake at which she was chained caught fire under her feet, swayed in the air for an instant, tumbled over into the furnace, and disappeared there with the victim in the midst of a wild flare of flames. The Duke of Aquitaine then embraced the knees of the papal legate and appealed to him imploringly: "Oh, my father in Christ, I vow to relinquish all my goods to our holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church! I vow to follow the Crusade barefooted in a sack! I vow to bury myself in the depths of a cloister upon my return to Gaul! I vow to die in the austerities of penance, to the end that I may obtain from God the remission of my sins and evil ways!"

"In the name of the All-Powerful, I take cognizance of your vows, William IX., Duke of Aquitaine!" responded the legate in a ringing and solemn voice. "Only the observance of these vows can render you worthy of a day of celestial mercy, thanks to the intercession of the Church!" And the Duke of Aquitaine, bent low at the feet of the legate, his forehead in the dust, repeated his protestations and lamentations, while the King of the Vagabonds, stepping out of the file of soldiers that surrounded the Saracen prisoners, and accompanied by his seneschal the Bacon-cutter, approached the legate, saying:

"Holy father in God, I have come with my seneschal and a few of my subjects for the purpose of spitting one of those Saracen miscreants over the fire. You have but to deliver the victim to me."

"That belongs to Bohemond, Prince of Taranto," the legate answered the King of the Vagabonds, pointing with his finger to a group of crusading seigneurs who had just witnessed the miracle of Peter Barthelmy and the death of Azenor the Pale. The Prince of Taranto approached Corentin and speaking in a low voice led him to the side where the iron spit lay placed on the iron X's. Then, drawing near the escort that surrounded the prisoners, the prince made a sign. The soldiers parted ranks, and five bound Saracens faced Bohemond and the other Crusaders. Two of these prisoners, a father and son, were particularly remarkable, one by his noble and calm face, framed in a long white beard, the other by the bold and juvenile beauty of his lineaments. The old man, wounded in the head and arm at the night attack, had torn a few pieces of his long mantle of white wool to bandage his and his son's wounds. Their superb scarfs of Tyrian wool, their silk caftans, embroidered with gold, although soiled with blood and dust, announced the rank of the chiefs. Thanks to an Armenian priest, who served as interpreter, they held the following discourse with the Prince of Taranto, who, addressing himself to the old man, said:

"Were you the chief of those infidel dogs who attempted to surprise the city of Marhala by night?"

"Yes, Nazarean; you and yours have carried war into our country. We defend ourselves against the invaders."

"By the cross on my sword! vile miscreant, dare you question the right of the soldiers of Christ to this land?"

"The same as I inherited my father's horse and black tent, Syria belongs to us, the children of those who conquered it from the Greeks. Our conquest was not pitiless like yours. When Abubeker Alwakel, the successor of the Prophet, sent Yzed-Ben-Sophian to conquer Syria, he said to him: 'You and your warriors shall behave like valiant men in battle, but kill neither old men, women nor children. Destroy neither fruit trees nor harvests. They are presents of Allah to man. If you meet with Christian hermits in the solitudes, serving God and laboring with their hands, do them no harm. As to the Greek priests, who, without setting nation against nation, sincerely honor God in the faith of Jesus, the son of Mary, we used be to them a protecting shield, because, without regarding Jesus as a God, we venerate him as a great, wise man, the founder of the Christian religion. But we abhor the doctrine that certain priests have drawn from the otherwise so pure doctrine of the son of Mary.'"

These words of the old emir, absolutely in keeping with the truth, and that contrasted so nobly with the cruelty of the soldiers of the cross, exasperated Bohemond. "I swear by Christ, the dead and resurrected God," he cried out, "you shall pay dearly for these sacrilegious words!"

"Be faithful to your faith, even unto the peril of your life, said the Prophet," the Saracen replied. "I am in your power, Nazarean. Your threats will not keep me from telling the truth. God is God!"

"The truth," added emir's son, "is that you Franks have invaded our country, ravaging our fields, massacring our wives and children, profanating the corpses!"

"Silence, my son!" resumed the emir in a grave voice. "Mahomet said it: The strength of the just man is in the calmness of his reasoning and in the justice of his cause." The young man held his peace, and his father proceeded, addressing the Prince of Taranto: "I told you the truth; I feel sorry for you if you are ignorant of, or deny it. Our people, separated from yours by the immensity of the seas and vast territories, could not harm your nation. We have respected the hermits and the Christian priests. Their monasteries rise in the midst of the fertile plains of Syria, their basilicas glisten in our cities beside our mosques. In the name of Abraham, the father of us all – Musselmen, Jews and Christians – we have welcomed like brothers your pilgrims, who came to Jerusalem to worship the sepulchre of Jesus, and his wise men. The Christians exercised their religion in peace, for Allah, the God of the Prophet, said through the mouth of Mahomet, the Prophet of God: Injure no one on account of his religion. But our mildness has emboldened your priests. They have incited the Christians against us; they have outraged our creed, pretending theirs alone is true and that Satan inspired our prayers. We long remained patient. A thousand times the stronger in numbers, we could have exterminated the Christians. We limited ourselves to imprisoning them. Those of your priests who outraged us and sowed discord in our country, were punished according to our laws. You then came by the thousands from beyond the seas, you invaded our country, and you have let loose upon us the most atrocious ills. Our priests then preached a holy war; we have defended ourselves, and we shall continue to do so. God protects the faithful!"

The calmness of the old emir exasperated the Crusaders. He would have been torn to pieces, together with his son and companions, but for the intervention of Bohemond, who with gesture and voice reined in the seigneurs. Addressing himself thereupon to the Saracen by means of the interpreter, he said: "You deserve death a hundred times, but I forgive you!"

"I shall report your generosity to my people."

"Be it so! But you shall also say to them: 'The Prince governor of the city and the seigneurs have to-day decided in council that all Saracens, henceforth captured, shall be killed and roasted, to serve as meat with their bodies to the seigneurs as well as to the army.'"[3 - William, Archbishop of Tyre, reports this frightful address in his history of the Crusaders.]

The Prince of Taranto, while speaking and acting like a cannibal, was following the inspiration of an atrocious policy. He knew that the eating of human flesh inspired the Mahometans with extreme horror, seeing they professed for their dead a religious veneration. Accordingly, Bohemond expected to conjure up such fear among the Saracens that it would paralyze their resistance, and they would no longer fight, fearing to fall dead or alive in the hands of the soldiers of Christ, and be devoured by them.[4 - Baudry, Archbishop of Dole, says: "It was not imputed a crime to eat up the Saracens; it was considered to be a waging of war against them with the teeth."]

At the order of the Prince of Taranto, the King of the Vagabonds seized the emir's son, and, while the soldiers held the other prisoners back to compel them to witness the revolting spectacle, the young Saracen was slaughtered, disembowelled, spitted and broiled over the burning embers of the pyre that had just been the theatre of the miracle of Peter Barthelmy and of the death of Azenor the Jewess; and in the presence of the crusading seigneurs, of the legate of the Pope and of the clergy, the Saracen youth was devoured by the band of Corentin the Gibbet-cheater, assisted by the other wretches, whom a fury of fanatical self-glorification drove to join the anthropophagous feast. This done, the father of the victim and his companions were freed from their bonds and set at liberty, a liberty, however, that the old man did not profit from. He dropped dead on the spot with grief and horror. Another Saracen went crazy with horror; the other two fled distracted from the fated city.

The frightful scene was hardly over, when messengers from Godfrey of Boullion arrived, notifying Bohemond to depart with his troops without delay, and join under the walls of Jerusalem the main army of Godfrey, who had just begun the siege of the Holy City.

Immediately the trumphets were sounded in Marhala; the cohorts formed themselves; and the army of the Prince of Taranto leaving a garrison behind in the Saracen city, set out on the march for Jerusalem, singing that now well-known refrain of the Crusaders, which was re-echoed in chorus by the mob that followed in the wake of the army:

"Jerusalem! Jerusalem! City of marvels! Happiest among all cities! You are the object of the vows of the angels! You constitute their happiness! The wood of the cross is our standard. Let's follow that banner, that marches on before, guided by the Holy Ghost! God wills it! God wills it! God wills it!"

CHAPTER VII.

THE FALL OF JERUSALEM

Fergan left the city with wife and child clad in new raiment, thanks to the purse he had found in the desert. An ass carried their provisions – a large pouch of water and a bag of dates. He also took precautions of arming himself for defence against marauders. To drop out of the stream of the Crusaders would at that season have been insanity. After the capture of Jerusalem, large numbers of Crusaders were expected to return to Europe, taking ship at Tripoli on Genoese or Venetian vessels. Fergan's little treasure would enable him to pay for the passage of himself and family to either of those cities, whence he planned to cross Italy, return to Gaul and settle down at Laon in Picardy, where he confidently expected to find Gildas, the elder brother of Bezenecq the Rich and joint descendant with the quarryman of Joel, the ancient Gallic Chief. Fergan felt a lively desire to see Jerusalem, the city where, over a thousand years before, his ancestress Genevieve had witnessed the agony of the carpenter of Nazareth, that humble artisan, that great and kindly sage, the friend of the slaves, of the poor and of the afflicted, the enemy of hypocrite priests, of the rich and of the powerful of his days. Joan and Colombaik alternately rode the ass when they were tired. The serf experienced a rare pleasure at seeing for the first time his wife and child properly clad, and steadily regaining the strength they had lost by their recent fatigues and privations.

They followed the wake of the army. At its head marched a band of cavaliers carrying the banner of St. Peter, the disciple of Jesus. Behind Peter's banner came the train-bands under the command of their respective seigneurs, carrying the banner of each seigniory embroidered with coat-of-arms, or war cries, such as: "To Christ, the Victorious!" "To the Reign of Jesus!" The latter motto appeared on the standard of the Prince of Taranto. The legate of the Pope followed next, accompanied by the clergy; then the troops of soldiers, on foot and on horseback; and finally the multitude of ragged men, women and children who trailed after the army. Fergan journeyed with these. To the end of husbanding their little purse, he employed himself taking charge of the mules or guiding the wagons, for which he received a few deniers and his food. The journey from Marhala to Jerusalem was trying in the extreme. A large number of helpless people dropped out on the route and died of thirst, hunger and fatigue, and became the pray of hyenas and vultures. Thus their bleaching bones, together with those of so many other victims, traced also the route to Jerusalem. Half a day's journey from the city Colombaik came near dying. Thrown down by a horse, his leg was broken in two places. As the child suffered excruciating pains he could not be transported on the ass. Leaving the other stragglers to continue their march, Fergan was left behind with Colombaik and Joan. The soil at that place was arid and mountainous. The pain suffered by Colombaik was intolerable. Hoping to descry some habitation, Fergan climbed to the top of a palm tree. At a great distance off the road nestled a collection of peasant houses at the foot of a hill, hidden under clusters of date trees. Aware of the kindheartedness natural to the Saracen people, whom nothing but the ferocity of the Crusaders pushed to a desperate resistance, above all aware of the religious regard that this nation has for the laws of hospitality, Fergan decided to transport his son with the aid of Joan to one of those houses and ask for help. The decision was put with all the greater promptness into execution out of fear for the marauders and vagabonds, who, hovering at a distance, would have slain them for the booty.

The dwellers of the little hamlet had all fled at the approach of the army of the Crusaders, except one Arab and his wife. Both of them, bent with age and seated at the threshold of their house, held their beads in their hands and were praying, in calm resignation awaiting death, certain that some soldier or other of Christ would come and pillage and ravage their home. The old Saracen and his mate, seeing Joan and Fergan approach carrying in their arms the child, who moaned piteously, realized that they need not fear them as enemies, and hastened forward to their encounter. Ignorant of the language of the travelers as these were of theirs, the Saracen couple exchanged a few words among themselves, pointing sympathetically to the child, and while the woman went towards a little garden, the man motioned to Fergan and Joan to follow him into the house. This dwelling was whitewashed without, after the fashion of the country; it was crowned by a terrace, and had no other opening than a narrow door. Two mats served for beds. After motioning Fergan and Joan to lay the child upon one of these and then to bare his leg, the host, who seemed gifted with certain surgical abilities, lengthily examined Colombaik's leg. He then stepped out, making a sign for Fergan and his wife to wait for him.

"Oh, Fergan!" exclaimed Joan, kneeling beside Colombaik, "with what solicitude did not that Saracen and his wife look upon our child! And yet we are strangers to them, enemies. The Crusaders whom we follow, ravage their country, massacre them, torture them to death! And yet see with what kindness these worthy people receive us!"

"It is natural. The Mohamedan priests, while preaching the sacred love of country and resistance to foreign oppression, also preach the holy laws of humanity towards God's creatures of whatever faith. Alack! Certain Christian priests order, and themselves set the example of, the extermination of those who do not share their beliefs. An atrocious creed!"

The Arab returned with his wife. She carried in her hand a vase of water, some palm leaves just pulled off, and some herbs that she had pounded between two stones. The Saracen brought several splints of the length of Colombaik's leg, together with a long bandage of cloth, with the aid of which she bound the splints firmly around the child's leg, after having covered it with the crushed herbs. The leg being bandaged, the old Arab woman sprinkled it with fresh water, and covered the whole limb with the palm leaves. Colombaik felt eased as if by enchantment. Full of gratitude, and unable to express themselves in a tongue that was not theirs, Fergan and Joan kissed the hands of their hosts. A tear rolled down upon the aged man's long beard, and he gravely pointed to heaven, meaning undoubtedly to tell his guests it was God that their thanks were due to. He then took the ass, which had remained standing at the door, and led it to the stable. The old woman brought in honey, fresh dates, sheep's milk and a buttered roll of meal. Fergan and Joan felt deeply touched by such a generous hospitality. Their child's sufferings were momentarily abating. The old man made them understand by a significant gesture, opening and closing his ten fingers three times and pointing to the child upon the mat, that he had to remain down thirty days, in order no doubt that the bones of his broken leg could again grow together and become strong. Thanks to the solitude where this house was ensconced in, the period necessary for the healing of the child ran peacefully by. They were the happiest days the serfs had yet known. After having exercised his hospitality towards them without knowing them, the aged Arabian grew attached to Fergan, Joan and Colombaik, touched by the gratitude that, to the best of their ability, they sought to manifest, and also by the tender affection that united Fergan and his wife. One day he took Fergan by the hand, led him up a stony hill, whence he pointed to the horizon, shaking his head expressive of uneasiness; he then pointed towards the foot of the hill at the tranquil habitation where they had dwelt nearly a month. Fergan understanding that he was urged to stay in that retreat, looked astonished at the Arabian. The latter thereupon folded his arms on his breast, closed his eyes, and, melancholily shaking his head, pointed to the earth, indicating that he was old, that soon he and his wife would die, and that, if Fergan was so inclined, the house, the garden, and the little field attached to it, would be his.

Fergan was but a poor serf, led to the Crusade by the urgency of escaping with wife and child the vengeance of his seigneur and the horrors of serfdom. Nevertheless, at that supreme moment, yielding obedience to the orders left by the Gallic chief Joel to his descendants, he achieved an act of self-sacrifice before which men more fortunately situated than himself might have recoiled. He might have accepted the aged Arabian's offer and ended his days free and happy in this retreat, in the company of his wife and child. But he was the depositary of a portion of the chronicles and relics of his family. He knew that Gildas, the elder brother of Bezenecq the Rich, held the archives of their family back to the invasion of Gaul by Cæsar, while himself was charged with a latter portion of safe-keeping. Some day he hoped to be able, in obedience to the behest of Joel, to add to those chronicles the recital of his own and his family's ordeals during the terrible period of the feudal oppression, and, in his turn, narrate the events they witnessed during this Crusade, one of the momentous crimes of Rome. Accordingly, Fergan considered it a sacred duty to make every effort to return to Gaul, and join his relation Gildas the Tanner in Laon. Moreover, since his arrival in Syria, he had heard that the inhabitants of several large cities in Gaul, more enlightened and more daring than the poorer rustic plebs, were beginning to stir. He had heard accounts of the insurrection of several cities of Gaul against their seigneurs, bishops and abbots, masters of the places. Perchance, those bourgeois revolts might lead to revolts among the serfs of the field. He conceived as possible a general revolt against the hierarchy of Church, monarchy and seigneurs, and he considered it a crime not to strive to be in Gaul at that hour of uprising and general enfranchisement. Fergan declined the Arab's offer.

July 15, 1099, arrived. Forever indelibly fixed remained that fatal date upon the serf's mind. Towards noon, leaning upon his mother and Fergan, Colombaik had been essaying his strength. For the first time in thirty days he had risen from his bed, and the two venerable hosts followed with tender solicitude the movements of the child. Suddenly the tramp of a horse was heard descending at a gallop the hill that rose above the house. The aged Saracen exchanged a few words with his wife and both stepped out precipitately. A few instants later they re-entered, accompanied by another grey-bearded Musselman covered with dust. His pale and disconcerted features expressed terror and despair. He spoke to the aged couple in abrupt words and panting for breath. Blood-stained bandages of linen around his right arm and leg betokened two recent wounds. Several times, in the midst of his excited words, the word "Jerusalem" was heard – the only word that the serfs could understand. As he spoke, fear, indignation and horror reflected themselves on the features of the aged Saracen and his wife, until presently their venerable faces were bathed in tears, and they fell upon their knees, moaning and raising their hands to heaven. At that moment the stranger, who in his pre-occupation had not noticed the serfs, recognized them by their clothes as Christians, emitted a cry of rage and drew his cimeter. Quickly rising to their feet, both the hosts ran to him, and after a few words, pronounced in a voice of tender reproach, the Saracen warrior returned his sabre to its scabbard and exchanged a few sentences with the aged couple. The latter seemed to conjure the stranger to remain with them; but he shook his head, pressed their hands in his, rushed out, threw himself upon his steaming horse, invoked the vengeance of heaven with a gesture, climbed the hill at a gallop, and vanished from sight. This friend of the aged couple had come to inform them of the capture of Jerusalem by the Crusaders. The recital of the massacres, the pillage, the unspeakable atrocities that the soldiers of Christ had soiled and dishonored their victims with, threw the aged couple into consternation. Anxious to ascertain the fact, Fergan addressed them, uttering the word "Jerusalem" in a sad and interrogating tone. Instead of answering, however, both drew brusquely away as if they extended to him the horror that the Crusaders inspired them with. Fergan exchanged a sad glance with Joan, when the host, no doubt regretting his first impulse, returned to the serfs, leaned over Colombaik, who had been laid down again, and kissed him on the forehead. Joan and Fergan, understanding the delicacy of the sentiment thus expressed, were moved to tears. The old Saracen took Fergan for one of the soldiers of that ferocious and impious Crusade, and deposited a kiss of pardon and oblivion upon the innocent brow of the child of the reputed malefactor. The aged Saracen then left the house with his wife.

"Jerusalem has fallen into the power of the Crusaders," Fergan said to Joan. "I can reach the city in a few hours. I desire to go there. There is nothing for me to fear. I shall be back early to-morrow morning. We shall then decide what to do."

Although uneasy at the prospect of his departure, the sweet Joan sought not to keep her husband back. After embracing her and entrusting to her his little treasury and the belt containing his family records and relics, Fergan left for Jerusalem. Hardly upon the road, which passed at quite a distance from his late retreat, he encountered a troop of pilgrims. They were also hastening to the holy city, whose domes, towers, minarets and even ramparts they began to perceive from afar after four hours march.

That vast city formed a square a league long. The enclosure dominated from the west by the high mount of Zion, contained the four rocky hills on which Jerusalem was built in an amphitheatre, – to the east, Mount Moriah, on which rose the Mosque of Omar, built upon the site of the old Temple of Solomon; to the southeast, Mount Acra, to the north, Mount Bezetha; and further to the west the Mount of Golgotha, the Calvary where the young man of Nazareth was crucified under the eyes of Fergan's ancestress Genevieve. At the summit of Calvary rose the Church of the Resurrection, built on the very spot where Jesus died, a magnificent church until then religiously respected by the Saracens, together with its treasures, despite the war of the Crusaders. Within the church stood the sepulchre of Christ, the pretext for this unhallowed war. Such was the distant view of Jerusalem. As the travellers approached, they saw more distinctly, within the ramparts of walls, the outlines of amphitheaters of white square houses, surmounted with terraces, and here and yonder, standing out against the deep blue of the sky, the domes of mosques, the steeples of Christian basilicas, and several bouquets of palm trees. Not a tree was visible in the environs of the city. The reddish, stony and parched ground, radiated the torrid heat of the sun that was westerning behind the hills. In the neighborhood of the camp, whose tents glistened only a short distance from the ramparts, a large number of Crusaders were seen dead or dying of the wounds that they received at the sortie made by the besieged. The wounded filled the air with pitiful wails, vainly imploring help. All the men, not the able-bodied alone, but even those whose wounds allowed them to walk, had precipitated themselves upon the city, in order to share in the sack. The abandoned camp contained only corpses, the dying, horses and beasts of burden. As the travelers drew still nearer to the city, whose gates had been knocked in after the siege, a confused and formidable noise struck their ears. It was a frightful mixture of cries of terror, of rage and of desperate supplication, above which ever and anon rose the fanatical clamor: "God wills it! God wills it!" After staggering and stumbling over thousands of corpses, strewn near the approaches of the gate of Bezetha, Fergan arrived at the entrance of a long street that issued into a vast square, in the middle of which rose the marvelous Mosque of Omar on the very site where once stood the ancient Temple of Solomon. It was as if the serf had stepped into a river of blood, red and reeking, and carrying in its current thousands of mutilated corpses, heads and disjointed members.

The street that Fergan stepped into belonged to the new ward, the richest of the city. Stately dwellings and not a few marble palaces, surmounted with balustraded terraces, rose on either side of this vast thoroughfare paved with wide slabs of stone. A furious multitude – soldiers, men, women and children, all belonging to the Crusade – swarmed over this long street, uttering ferocious yells. A young Saracen woman rushed out of the door of the third house to the right of Fergan. She was deadly pale with terror, her hair streamed behind her, and her rich clothes were in shreds. In her arms she carried two children, two or three years old. Behind her an aged man, already wounded, appeared on the threshold, walking backward and striving to defend her. The flow of blood covered his visage and clotted his long white beard, while he struggled to keep back two Crusaders. One of these, carrying on his left shoulder a bundle of costly clothes, pursued the aged Saracen with sword thrusts, and finally ran him through the breast, throwing him dead at the feet of the young mother. The second Crusader, who, no doubt disdaining to carry a heavy booty, had strung around his neck several gold chains pillaged in this house, immediately seized the young woman by the throat and rolled her over on a heap of corpses, while the first crushed under his iron-tagged heels the heads of the two children that had dropped from their mother's arms. At that instant, one of the women who followed the army hastened by, a hideous and savage-looking hag, brandishing in her hand the stump of a knife, red with blood. A lad, about the age of Colombaik, accompanied the fury. "Each one his turn," said she to the soldier; "leave for me those whelps of the devil, my son will dispatch them!" And placing the knife in the lad's hand, she added: "Cut off their heads, disembowel those infidel dogs!" The child obeyed the hag's orders and disemboweled the two little children.

Further away, a band of vagabonds and wenches, drunk with wine and carnage, was besieging a palace that the men of Heracle, seigneur of Polignac, had seized. As the symbol of possession, these had raised the embroidered banner of their seigneur upon the terrace of the splendid building. After throwing a shower of stones at the soldiers of the seigneur of Polignac, the vagabonds and wenches assailed the soldiers with sticks, pikes and cutlasses, shouting hoarsely in the midst of the bloody melée: "Death! To the sack! This house and its riches belong to us as well as to the seigneurs! To the sack! Death! Death!"

"Exterminate this band of vagabonds!" shouted back the soldiers, thrusting about them with their lances and swords. "Death to these jackals who mean to devour the prey of the lion!"

As Fergan advanced along this street he witnessed shocking scenes. The sight of a gigantic soldier carrying, strung on his upright lance, three little children from five to six months old, was a spectacle never to be forgotten. Suddenly he found himself shoved hither and thither, and presently shut in within a circle of armed men who seemed to be arranged in some kind of order before the entrance of one of the most splendid palaces on the street. Lemon and oleander trees, planted in boxes, but now broken in two and upset, still ornamented the moresque balustrades of the terrace. The band, among which there were several women, and that left a wide empty space free between itself and the walls, emitted yells of savage impatience. Presently, the sleeves of his brown frock rolled back to the elbows, and his hands red with blood, a monk leaned forward over the balustrade of the terrace. It was Peter the Hermit, the companion of Walter the Pennyless. The identical Cuckoo Peter, whose hollow eyes glistened with savage fanaticism, now called out to the crowd in a hoarse voice: "My brothers in Christ, are you ready? Draw near and receive your share of the booty."

"We are ready, holy man, and have been long waiting," answered several bandits; "we are losing our time here; they are pillaging elsewhere, holy father in God! We want our share of the booty."

"Here comes your share of this great feast, my brothers in Christ. The vapor of the infidels' blood rises towards the Lord like an incense of myrrh and balsam! Let not one of the miscreants, that we are about to throw down to you from this terrace, escape with his life!"

Peter the Hermit vanished and almost immediately the bust of a Saracen, clad in the purple caftan embroidered in gold, appeared above. Although bound hands and feet, the wild jumps of the unhappy man showed that he resisted with all his might the efforts of those who strove to throw him down into the street. A few minutes later, however, half his body had been forced over the balustrade. He straightened up once more, but immediately was hurled into space and dropped, head foremost, thirty feet below. A joyous clamor broke out at the man's fall, and redoubled when, with a dull thud, his skull struck the pavement and broke. He lived a few seconds longer, and strove to turn on his side while emitting violent imprecations. But soon, riddled with sword thrusts, broken with clubs and mauled with stones, there remained of him but a mangled lump in the midst of a pool of blood. "Father in God," cried out the mob, "the job is done! Hurry up! Send us another!"

The hideous figure of Peter the Hermit re-appeared above the balustrade. He leaned his head forward and contemplated the remains of the Saracen. "Well done, my children!" The monk had hardly disappeared again, when two youths of fifteen to sixteen years, brothers no doubt, and bound face to face, were thrown down from the terrace. The violence of the fall snapped the bands that held them together. The elder was killed on the spot, the younger's legs were broken. For a few moments he dragged himself on his hands, moaning piteously and seeking to approach his brother's corpse. The Crusaders pounced upon these new victims. Women, monsters in human form, pulled out their entrails, indulged in obscene and infamous mutilations upon the two corpses, and throwing into the air the bleeding parts, cried out exultingly: "Let's exterminate the infidels! God wills it!"

Twenty times did Peter the Hermit re-appear on the terrace, and twenty times were bodies thrown down over the balustrade, and torn to pieces by the crowd, drunk with bloodshed. Among these victims were five young girls and two other boys from ten to twelve years of age.