At length, all obstacles removed, in the month of May, in the last year of the eleventh century, they entered the Holy Land.
On this sacred soil the action of our tale recommences.
. . . . .
It was a lovely evening in May, and the year was the last of the eleventh century.
The sun had gone down about half an hour, but had left behind him a flood of golden light in the west, glorious to behold--so calm, so transparent was that heavenly after glow, wherein deep cerulean blue was flecked with the brightest crimson or the ruddiest gold.
The moon had risen in the east, and was shining from a deep dark-blue background, which conveyed the idea of immeasurable space, with a brilliancy which she seldom or never attains in our northern sky.
A group of warriors had kindled a fire beneath the wide-spreading branches of an immense cedar tree, which had, perhaps, been planted in the reign of Solomon to supply the loss of those cut down for the temple by Hiram of Tyre.
The landscape was a striking one.
Above them, in the distance, opened a mighty gorge, through which flowed the rushing waters of a mountain torrent, one of the sources of the Jordan, issuing from the snows of Hermon.
Below, the country expanded into a gently undulating plain, studded with cedars, which resembled in no small degree the precincts of some old English park.