At dawn of day he left the city in disgust, but wherever he came he found the country smoking with the blood of helpless innocence and unresisting weakness, and was told by the priests in tones of triumph that in one night all the heretics of the kingdom had been exterminated. He asked then what these poor people had done, whether they were thieves and robbers, traitors or rebels, that they should be cut down in one single night without discrimination and without mercy. But all the answer he received was—
“They deny the supremacy of the Pope!”
“Strange!” thought Musa. “But I am among true believers and enlightened philosophers, and no doubt shall find the Truth at last.”
He, however, determined to leave the country as soon as possible, and bending his course to the seaside, embarked in a vessel destined for England, but which was driven by stress of weather into a port of Ireland. Here he found every thing in confusion. People were setting fire to the churches, pulling down stately abbeys and convents, and driving their inmates before them with every species of violence and of opprobrium.
“Who are these people?” asked he—“and what have they done—most especially those poor women and children, whom I see fleeing from their pursuers, pale with affright, and crying out in despair?”
“They are heretics and believe in the Pope,” was the cool reply.
“That is very strange,” said Musa—“I am just from a land where they were massacring men, women and children because they did not believe in the Pope. How is this?”
“We are only retaliating their persecutions. When they had the upper hand they oppressed us, and it is but just that they should suffer in turn.”
“But does not your religion inculcate forgiveness of enemies?”
Before Musa could receive a reply, an aged, bald-headed friar ran tottering past, with a nun holding by his hand, and pursued by several people who seemed half mad with hate and eagerness, and assailed them with missiles of every kind. His companion joined the throng, and left him without an answer. He inquired of another what the old man, and especially the poor woman, had done to merit such unworthy treatment, and was told that one was a friar of the Order of Mercy, and the other a Sister of Charity.