"Yes, yes," added Perrette the Ribald, laughing loudly and seizing the other arm of the quarryman's wife, "come to Jerusalem; come to the land of marvels!"
"Leave me alone!" said the poor woman, struggling to disengage herself. "For pity's sake, leave me! I am expecting my husband and my child!"
Forced to follow her persecutors, and carried, despite herself, by the stream of the Crusaders, Joan, fearing to be stifled or crushed under foot by the crowd, sought no longer to struggle against the current. Suddenly, instead of proceeding onward, the mob swayed back, and these words ran from mouth to mouth: "Silence! Cuckoo Peter and Walter the Pennyless are going to speak! Silence!" A deep silence ensued. Halting in the middle of a large open space, where, gaping with curiosity, the serfs of the village stood gathered together, the monk and his companion prepared themselves to harangue these poor rustic plebs. Cuckoo Peter reined in his white mule and rising in his stirrups, he screamed in a hoarse yet penetrating voice, addressing the serfs of the seigniory of Plouernel: "Do you, Christian folks, know what is going on in Palestine? The divine tomb of the Saviour is in the hands of the Saracens! The Holy Sepulchre of our Lord is in the power of the infidels! Woe is us! Woe! Malediction! Malediction!" And the monk struck his chest, tore his frock, rolled his hollow eyes in their sockets, ground his teeth, foamed at the mouth, went through a thousand contortions on his mule, and resumed with increased fury: "The infidel is lord in Jerusalem, the Holy City! The miscreant insults the tomb of Christ with his presence! And you, Christians, my brothers, you remain indifferent before so horrible a sacrilege! Before such an abomination——"
"No, no!" cried back with one voice the mob of the Crusaders. "Death to the infidels! Let's deliver the tomb! Let's march to Jerusalem, the city of marvels and of beauty! God wills it! God wills it!"
The serfs of the village, ignorant, besotted, timid, opened wide their eyes and ears, and looked at one another, never before having heard the name of Jerusalem or of the Saracens mentioned, and unable to explain the fury and contortions of the monk. Accordingly, Martin the Prudent, the same who, two days before, had ventured to depict to the bailiff the sufferings of his fellows, timidly said to Cuckoo Peter: "Holy patron, seeing that our Lord Jesus Christ sits on his throne in heaven, together with God the Father in eternal glory, what can it be to him whether his tomb be in the hands of the people whom you call Saracens? Kindly enlighten us."
"That's what we would like to know," joined another serf, a young fellow who looked less stupid than the others. "We want to know that first."
"Oh, oh!" exclaimed Walter the Pennyless. "By my valiant sword, the Sweetheart of the Faith! Here have we a rude questioner. What's your name, my brave lad?"
"My name is Colas the Bacon-cutter."
"As surely as ham is the friend of wine, you must be a relative of my friend Simon the Porkrind-scraper," replied the Gascon knight, amidst peals of laughter from the serfs, who were delighted by this sally. "So, then, you would like to know, my worthy Colas the Bacon-cutter, what it can matter to Jesus Christ, enthroned in heaven with the Eternal Father and the sweet dove, the Holy Ghost, if his sepulchre is held by the Saracens?"
"Yes, seigneur," rejoined the serf; "because, if that displeases him, how is it that, seeing he is God and omnipotent, he does not exterminate them? Why does he not turn those Saracens into pulp at a single wafture of his hand?"