"O Lord Christ! Restore to us thy Cross!"
"You know not what is before you," said the wise greybeards of the villages through which they passed. "What do you mean to do?"
"To get to the Holy Land," was the invariable and undaunted answer.
Weary and hungry, with their ranks much thinned by fatigue and the hardships of the way, the Child Crusade entered Marseilles with gallant hearts. For they fully expected that they would find the sea cleft asunder by a miracle, and a pathway prepared for them to the other side. When they found they were mistaken, some turned their faces homeward; but most stayed to see if by any means they could get boats to take them to the Holy Land. To them came presently two merchants, Hugh Ferrens, and William Beco, or Porcus, who had already discovered how to make a fortune by selling European children as slaves to the Saracens. Approaching the eager little ones with kindly words, they offered to lend them seven ships wherein they might be taken across the sea to their destination.
Joyfully the children agreed and set forth with songs and merry cries, cheered by a vast multitude who watched them from the shore. Of that bright-faced band not one ever reached the Holy Land or returned to Europe to tell the tale. At the end of two days, two of the ships were wrecked in a terrible storm and all on board perished.
The rest escaped this peril, and sailed on to Alexandria and other ports, where the poor little passengers were landed and sold as slaves to the Saracens. Twelve of these are said to have won the martyr's crown, because they preferred to die rather than renounce their faith, a few reached the Christian city of Ptolemais after a time, and told their sad story to the enraged inhabitants, the rest were condemned to a life of slavery among the sons of Islam.
Theirs is a sad story, yet we may find in it the awakening of that spirit of devotion which seemed to have died out in Europe.
Pope Innocent, when he heard of this Crusade, might well say, "These children are a reproach to us for slumbering while they fly to the succour of the Holy Land."
From that time preparations for the Sixth Crusade began in good earnest.