‘To Jerusalem.’
When they reached the shore, the waves on the beach broke against their feet quietly and steadily. No path opened before them. Those who tried to wade in soon scrambled back to land. They had neither money nor food. They were a sorrowful band, and kind people in Italy drew those who would come into their homes, and allowed them to grow up amongst their own children. But there were many who would neither go back to their own lands nor stay in Italy. They wandered by the shore and dreamed of the Holy City. Then they heard of ships that were to sail to the south. The captains offered to take the little Crusaders to the Holy Land without payment. The children crowded on to the vessels, and thought that now at last they were on the way to save Jerusalem. But ere many days had gone by they looked at each other with sad and frightened faces. The captains were wicked, cruel men, and the little children were sold as slaves.
Though the children fought no battle, the story of their sorrows roused Europe to a new Crusade. This time the armies tried to reach Jerusalem from the South. They landed in Egypt at the mouth of the Nile, and took the town of Damietta. But they were not strong enough to drive the enemy away from their camp beside the city. Every day the two forces fought with each other. Besides those who fell in battle, hundreds of warriors were drowned in the Nile. In each camp envy and spite were dividing those who ought to have thought only of the cause for which they fought. Into the midst of all this hatred a strange figure came. It was the figure of St. Francis. He was very unlike all others in the crusading camp, for he did not come to fight, but only to help and to love. He nursed the sick and wounded by day and by night, and as he went from tent to tent the rough soldiers looked at him with awe. His body was worn and spent, yet he never showed that he was tired. It seemed as if he could make himself do whatever he willed to do, even when it was something that men thought impossible.
As he went through the camp, he often looked across to the Saracen tents.
‘If they only knew,’ he thought.
He wished to tell them about Jesus Christ. He did not think that any one who knew about Him could do anything but love and serve Him. The longing to tell them grew so strong that he could not stay. He went alone to the enemies’ camp and entered the sultan’s tent. He told him of Jesus Christ and of the Christian faith, but the sultan listened carelessly. He was not moved by the passionate words of St. Francis, who grew more and more eager.
‘Test what I say by fire,’ he said. ‘Choose the most faithful follower of your prophet, and he and I will walk through fire together. Then you will know that the one whom the flames do not hurt is the one that God owns.’
The sultan looked at him. He thought that the Christian monk was mad. He would not hear of sending one of his men to walk through fire. But Francis tried once more to win his Church’s enemy.
‘I will pass alone through the fire,’ he said, ‘if you will promise to worship Christ if I am not burned.’
The sultan would not promise, and the Saracen soldiers shouted, ‘Behead him, behead him!’