"The ship has gone," said a friend to Lull. He quivered under a torture of shame greater than the agony of the rack. He was wrung with bitter shame that he who had for all these years prepared for this Crusade should now have shown the white feather. He was, indeed, a craven knight of Christ.
His agony of spirit threw him into a high fever that kept him in his bed.
Soon after he heard that another ship was sailing for Africa.
In spite of the protestations of his friends Lull insisted that they should carry him to the ship. They did so; but as the hour of sailing drew on his friends were sure that he was so weak that he would die on the sea before he could reach Africa. So—this time in spite of all his pleading—they carried him ashore again. But he could not rest and his agony of mind made his fever worse.
Soon, however, a third ship was making ready to sail. This time Lull was carried on board and refused to return.
The ship cast off and threaded its way through the shipping of the harbour out into the open sea.
"From this moment," said Lull, "I was a new man. All fever left me almost before we were out of sight of land."
V
The First Battle
Passing Corsica and Sardinia, the ship slipped southward till at last she made the yellow coast of Africa, broken by the glorious Gulf of Tunis. She dropped sail as she ran alongside the busy wharves of Goletta. Lull was soon gliding in a boat through the short ancient canal to Tunis, the mighty city which was head of all the Western Mohammedan world.