'On my faith!' said Walter, laughing, 'Fortune seems to bestow her favours liberally on the pilgrims from England. No saying what great exploits my Lord of Salisbury and his knights may yet perform! One day we seize a castle and a caravan; another day it may be a kingdom.'
'And yet,' observed De Vere, the tone of his voice suddenly changing as he spoke, 'I am seldom in solitude without experiencing a vague feeling that calamity is impending.'
Now this adventure, successful as it appeared, involved the English Crusaders in serious troubles. When Salisbury, on his bay charger, rode into Damietta, with the captive Saracen ladies and the captured caravan, the French were moved with envy, and did not fail to express their sentiments in strong language. Perhaps the English did not bear their good fortune so meekly as they might have done. In any case, the French grew more and more exasperated; and at length the quarrel reached such a stage that the French, availing themselves of superior numbers, had recourse to violence, and forcibly carried off part of the booty which, at great peril and with some labour, Longsword and his men had won.
CHAPTER XVI.
A COUNCIL OF WAR.
ON the morning after the return of the Earl of Salisbury to Damietta, and the violent proceedings of the French Crusaders against the English companions of their expedition, King Louis summoned a council of war to deliberate on the measures most likely to lead to the conquest of Egypt—the grand object of the saintly monarch's ambition.
By this time arrivals from various quarters had swelled the army that, under the banner of St. Denis, lay encamped at Damietta. Thither, under the grand masters of their orders, had come the Templars and the Hospitallers, whose discipline and knowledge of the East rendered them such potent allies. Thither had come the Duke of Burgundy, who had passed the winter in the Morea; and the Prince of Achaia, who forgot the perils surrounding the Latin empire of Constantinople, in his eagerness to combat the Moslem on the banks of the Nile; thither, recovered from their fright, had come the Crusaders whose vessels the storm had driven on the Syrian coast; and thither, with the arrière ban of France, Alphonse, Count of Poictiers—'one of that princely quaternion of brothers which came hither at this voyage, and exceeded each other in some quality—Louis the holiest, Alphonse the subtlest, Charles the stoutest, and Robert the proudest.' No fewer than sixty thousand men—twenty thousand of whom were cavalry—-were now encamped around the oriflamme; and with such an army, led by such chiefs, the saint-king would have been more than mortal if he had not flattered himself with the hope of accomplishing something great, to be recorded by chroniclers and celebrated by minstrels.
And the princes and nobles assembled to hold a council of war; and Louis, with his crown on his brow, took his place to preside, with that serene dignity which distinguished him. But, ere the proceedings began, the Earl of Salisbury rose, and intimated his desire to address the king on a subject of great importance. Louis immediately signified consent; and the earl, raising his hand to ensure silence, proceeded with a calm but resolute air:—