—Milton.
For many days Sir Charleroy and Miriamne tarried at Acre, the latter seeking to banish repining on account of him whom she had sent away at the behest of conscience, by ministries for her parent. With alacrity she joined the tours of her knightly father, visiting the scenes where he once battled, listening, from time to time, with unaffected delight, to his recitals. The tides of fanatical conquests had wrought few changes on the face of the city, and the realism of those days of siege, of the stern compacts made in the last hours of the Crusaders, the solemn religious services before the last battle, the death struggle and the disordered retreat, was complete. The excitement of revived memories seemed to lift up the knight from the syncope of ill health. This encouraged the maiden to solicit the reviews and recitals of her father. The night before their departure from Acre, as determined, the knight and his daughter stood together contemplating the sacred pile which stood in the moonlight and shadows, mostly in shadows. The soldier of fortune, having told its story over and over, was now silent, dreaming of the past.
“Selamet!”
They both started, for the voice was like one from the tomb, none but themselves being apparent.
“I’m afraid here; let’s be going, father,” whispered Miriamne, essaying to withdraw.
Thereupon there glided out of the shadows a stately form who, drawing near to the father and daughter, spoke:
“Fear not, lady! Knight, they can not be foes who court kindred memories and hope of like colors at the same shrine!”
“Thou speakest with Christian allusions the ‘peace’ word of the Turk.”
“I wear the Turkish ‘selamet,’ as I do this Turkish harness, a loathed necessity, but without; the peace I pray and feel is the mystic inner peace.”