[2]. All this, along with every treasure of her past, has now disappeared.
“What curious folk the Sicilians are! They accept new creeds and ceremonies, but the old never quite lose their place. Where else would the Madonna allow a Pagan goddess to figure in her train? And did you notice in this very procession they still carry the identical skin of the camel on which Roger entered the city when he began his conquest of Sicily? I wish it were near the 15th of August!”
“I wish it were near the time this train starts, if it ever does,” replied Peripatetica crossly.
And, as if but waiting the expression of her wish, the train did begin to stream swiftly along the deeply indented coast beside whose margin came that wild Norman raid upon Messina of the dauntless young hawks of de Hauteville. Roger, the youngest and greatest of the twelve sons, accompanied by but sixty knights and their squires, two hundred men in all, pouncing daringly upon a kingdom. A half dozen galleys slipped over from Reggio by night, and the morning sun flashed upon the dew-wet armour as they galloped through the dawn to Messina’s walls. The great fortified city was in front of them, a hostile country around them, and a navy on the watch to cut them off from reinforcements or return by sea. That they should succeed was visibly impossible. But determined faces were under the steel visors, the spirit of conquering adventure shining in their grey eyes. Every man of the host was confessed and absolved for this fight of the Cross against the Crescent and their young Commander was dedicated to a life pure and exemplary, if to him was entrusted the great task of winning Sicily to Christian dominion.
They did it because they thought they could do it; as in the old Greek games success was to the man who believed in his success. The Saracens fell into a panic at the sight of that intrepid handful at their gates, thinking from the very smallness of the band that it must be the advance pickets of a great army already past their guarding navy and advancing upon the city.
“So the Saracens gave up in panic, and Roger and his two hundred took all the town with much gold and many slaves, as was a conquering warrior’s due.”
The key of Messina was sent to Brother Robert in Calabria with the proud message that the city was his to come and take possession of. And the Normans went on with the same bold confidence; and always their belief was as a magic buckler to them as over all the island they extended their conquest. Seven hundred Normans routed an army of 15,000 Saracens, killing 10,000. And young Serbo, nephew of Roger, conquered 30,000 Arabs, attacking them with only one hundred knights.
It was one of Jane’s pet romances, the career of this landless youngest son of a small French noble carving out with sword and brain “the most brilliant of European Kingdoms,” leaving a dominion to his successors with power stretching far beyond Sicily as long as they governed upon his principles. The young conqueror, unspoiled by his dazzling success, ruled with justice, mercy, and genius, making Sicily united and prosperous; the freest country in the world at that time; the only one where all religions were tolerated, where men of different creeds and tongues could live side by side, each in his own way; each governed justly and liberally according to his own laws—French statutes for Normans, the Koran for Mussulmen, the Lombard laws for Italians, and the old Roman Code for the natives.
“Peripatetica,” Jane burst out. “Roger must have been a delightful person—‘so good, so dear, so great a king!’ Don’t you think there is something very appealing in a king’s being called ‘so dear’? It is much easier for them to be ‘great.’”
“Normans are too modern for me now,” said Peripatetica, whose own enthusiasm was commencing to catch fire. “We are coming to the spot of all the Greek beginnings, where their very first settlement began—do you realize that?”