“Yea more—Babylon has fallen—the Jews, the Jews—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, are consumed in the burning fiery furnace—Ha! ha! How the flames crackled and sparkled—How the Long-beards winced and writhed—Ashes! Ashes!” said he, throwing the contents of one of the boxes into the faces of the spectators—“Yea more—
“The crusaders followed the spirit divine,
And water and blood it turned into wine;
That made us strong for the slaughter.
Drink—heal—wassail,”—and he poured from a bottle a noisome liquid, from which the crowd shrank back in disgust.
“The demons shrieked in the forest—and the little fiends winked in the marshes—they showed us the way to the holy sepulchre—bridges of corpses—rusty armor—glaring eyeballs. How the wolves howled on our track—and the black ravens croaked over the dying—’Twas rare sport to hear them groan.
“The goat led his followers up the steep rock,
The goose flapped her wings, and headed the flock;
List to the sound of the martyrs’ bones;”
and the lunatic broke into a wild fantastic dance, rattling his boxes and shaking his horrid rosary with demoniac frenzy.
The countess was here relieved from her involuntary attendance upon the frightful exhibition, by the approach of Prince Henry, who having consigned the madman to proper care, dispersed the crowd, and permitted the train proceed.
In reply to Adela’s anxious inquiries, he informed her that the miserable creature whom she had seen, had belonged to a mad-rabble, that set off for the Holy Land without leader or guide, held together only by the strange infatuation of adoring a goat and a goose, which they believed to be filled with the divine spirit.
Their malignant zeal was directed principally against the Jews, whom they exterminated wherever they came. The Hungarians denied them a passage through the country. The fanatics attempted to force their way across the Danube. The nation rose to arms, and for several days smote them with such slaughter, that the fields were strewed with the slain, and the very waters of the river were hidden by the multitude of the corpses.
“Heaven punished their impiety with a loss of reason,” said Adela, with a sigh.