Sebastian led him into the tent, with a touch soft and tender as a woman's. "Dear lad," he said gently, "God will not be angry unduly with you for what you have just said, though its sin is very great. You think, 'How can this thing be and God be still good?' Remember the words of holy Anselm of Canterbury, 'I ask not to understand that I may believe; but I believe that I may learn to understand.'"
"Father," said Richard, with a terrible calmness in his voice, "if for my own sins I had been doomed to some great woe, I could say 'mea culpa,—merciful chastisement'; but since the chief suffering will be that of as pure a saint as ever breathed this air, I cannot endure without a groan. I only know that the hand of God is exceeding heavy upon me, and my burden is more than I can bear." Then, to the infinite relief of Sebastian and the rest, he let them take off his blood-soaked armor and shirt, and stanch the wounds, which were none very deep, but so many that he was weak from loss of blood. Presently Herbert came in and reported: "Little lord, our men took thirty Turks prisoners when the camp was stormed; shall we keep them to put to ransom?" Richard was not too feeble to leap from the rugs. "Kill! kill!" he foamed out; "if Satan wait long for their souls, let him have mine too!"
Herbert smiled grimly and went out of the tent.
"Ai," cried Longsword to Sebastian, when the priest forced him to lie down once more, "I do well to be cruel,—for there is no sweet angel now to teach me mercy. God reward me double beyond present griefs, if I slay not my share of the infidels! Therefore let me grow pitiless and terrible."
"You should hate and slay the Lord's enemies, dear son," said Sebastian, crossing himself; "yet beware lest you fight for your own revenge, and not for the glory of God."
"Enough if I slay them!" was the answer. Then Richard took food and drink, and toward morning slept.
So ended the day of Dorylæum, the battle where, as the pious chronicler puts it, "by the aid of St. James and St. Maurice the Christians had a great deliverance from their enemies, and twenty-three thousand infidels were sped to perdition; such being the singular favor of God."