Again there was a pause. Circled by his Nubian guard, and followed by the bravest and the brightest of his court, the sultan himself rode up to the bleeding crusader. Yet, even there, decked with all the pomp of royalty and pride of war, goodly in person, and sublime in bearing, the monarch of the East was shamed—shamed like a slave before his master—by the native majesty of Christian virtue; nor could the prince at first find words to address the tortured mortal who stood at his feet with the serene deportment which would have beseemed the judge upon his tribunal no less than the martyr at the stake.
“Has the Nazarene yet learned experience from the bitter sting of adversity? The skill of the leech may yet assuage thy wounds, and the honors which shall be poured upon thee may yet efface thine injuries—even as the rich grain conceals in its luxuriance the furrows of the ploughshare! Will the Nazarene live? or will he die the death of a dog?”
“The Lord is on my side,” was the low but firm reply—“the Lord is on my side: I will not fear what man doeth unto me!”
On swept the monarch’s train, and again the iron shower fell fast and fatally—not as before, on the members, but on the broad chest and manly trunk. The blood gushed forth in blacker streams; the warrior’s life was ebbing fast away—when from the rear of the broken hills a sudden trumpet blew a point of war in notes so thrilling, that it pierced the ears like the thrust of some sharp weapon. Before the astonishment of the crowd had time to vent itself in word or deed, the eminences were crowded with the mail-clad myriads of the Christian forces! Down they came, like the blast of the tornado on some frail and scattered fleet, with war-cry, and the clang of instruments, and the thick trampling of twice ten thousand hoofs. Wo to the sons of the desert in that hour! They were swept away before the mettled steeds and levelled lances of the templars like dust before the wind, or stubble before the devouring flame!
The eye of the dying hero lightened as he saw the banners of his countrymen. His whole form dilated with exultation and triumph. He tore his arm from its fetters, waved it around his blood-stained forehead, and for the last time shouted forth his cry of battle: “Ha! Beauseant! A Vermandois for the temple!” Then, in a lower tone, he cried: “‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.’” He bowed his head, and his undaunted spirit passed away.
THE RENEGADO;
A SKETCH OF THE CRUSADES.
——————“how faint and feebly dim
The fame that could accrue to him
Who cheered the band, and waved the sword,
A traitor in a turbaned horde.”—Siege of Corinth.
For well nigh two long years had the walls of Acre rung to the war-cries and clashing arms of the contending myriads of Christian and Mohammedan forces, while no real advantage had resulted to either army, from the fierce and sanguinary struggles that daily alarmed the apprehensions, or excited the hopes of the besieged. The rocky heights of Carmel now echoed to the flourish of the European trumpet, and now sent back the wilder strains of the Arabian drum and cymbal. On the one side were mustered the gigantic warriors of the western forests, from the wild frontiers of Germany, and the shores of the Baltic; while on the other were assembled the Moslems of Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, the wandering tribes from the Tigris to the banks of the Indus, and the swarthy hordes of the Mauritanian desert. Not a day passed unnoted by some bloody skirmish or pitched battle;—at one time the sultan forced his way into the beleaguered city, and the next moment the crusaders plundered the camp of the Mohammedan. As often as by stress of weather the European fleet was driven from its blockading station, so often were fresh troops poured in to replace the exhausted garrison; and as fast as the sword of the infidel, or the unsparing pestilence, thinned the camp of the crusaders, so fast was it replenished by fresh swarms of pilgrims, burning with enthusiastic ardor, and aspiring to re-establish the dominion of the Latin kings within the precincts of the holy city.
Suddenly, however, the aspect of affairs was altered; a change took place in the tactics of the paynim leaders—a change which, in the space of a few weeks, wrought more havoc in the lines of the invaders than months of open warfare. The regular attacks of marshalled front and steady fighting, wherein the light cavalry of the Turkish and Saracen tribes invariably gave way before the tremendous charges of the steel-clad knights, were exchanged for an incessant and harassing war of outposts. Not a drop of water could be conveyed into the Christian camp, unless purchased by a tenfold effusion of noble blood; not a picket could be placed in advance of their position, but it was inevitably surrounded and cut off; not a messenger could be despatched to any Latin city, but he was intercepted, and his intelligence rendered subservient to the detriment and destruction of the inventors.