In the dim light of the tent, on a bed of ashes, lay all that was left of good King Louis. His beautiful face still kept the grandeur men had loved to see all his life long. He lay there in the sad, plague-stricken camp, and around him there seemed to linger the light of heaven.
Louis was the last of the heroes of the Crusades, but for years after his death the Christian forces held cities in the Holy Land. At last they were driven from all their strongholds, and the Moslem rule was unbroken.
To-day there is no kingdom of Jerusalem. There are ruins of churches and of castles, and the broken walls show how great was once the power of the armies of the Cross.
But though the dream of the Crusaders never came true, and though all their efforts left little mark on the life of the East, yet the lands from which the knights went out have been changed, and all their history has been different, because of those wars to which their armies went.
Over the door of an old house in a close in Edinburgh a scallop-shell, like the shells that were brought by pilgrims from the Holy Land, was cut in stone. In that house those who had made the long journey to the East, and had come back weary or ill, were welcomed and cared for. The shell above the door stood for hundreds of years to tell of the olden days. It is so in the history of Europe. Those who know it best can see the mark of the Crusades cut into the life of the nations whose knights led the armies of the Holy War, as clearly as the scallop-shell was cut into the old wall in Edinburgh.
Edinburgh: Printed by T. and A. Constable
A NEW SERIES FOR CHILDREN
Large Type, Pure Rag Paper
THE CHILDREN’S HEROES
Edited by JOHN LANG