"God Wills It!" A Tale of the First Crusade.

by William Stearns Davis

But Longsword did not wait for her to finish her adjuration. Right at the turn in the road were advancing a knot of men in bright barbaric dresses with tossing spears and brandished cimeters. When they caught sight of their galloping pursuers, they set up a hideous din from horns and cymbals and tabors; and the shout of the Baron's party was met by a louder from fourfold as many throats.

The Baron had pricked up abreast of his son, and one sweeping glance over the freebooters' array told the story.

"Nigh two hundred," he muttered under his helmet, "and think themselves too strong to be molested. We have met them as they return to their ship. Berbers mostly, but I see the fair skins of some Christian renegadoes. They have captured some horses, and their prisoners are strapped to them, in the centre of the band. By the peacock! it will be a pretty fight ere we get at them! But we have our mounts, and one rider matches ten on the ground."

The pirates stood on a little clearing flanked by vineyard hedges; and a low stone wall lay betwixt them and their assailants. The horde were drawing up in close mass: the best-armored men without, bowmen within, prisoners and booty in the centre. A tall mounted African in a splendid suit of silvered armor and in gilded casque was wheeling about, ordering, brandishing his long cimeter,—evidently the chief. Just before the pirates lay the wall, which a mounted enemy must clear at a bound to strike them. Baron William turned to Herbert.

"Ready, my men?"

"Ready, lord."

Then again the Baron wound the horn, and the restless horses felt no spur when the whole band as one swept forward. Right as they came to the leap of the wall a deadly arrow fire smote them. Three steeds went down: four riders reeled; but the others took the bound and crashed upon the Berbers. Four and five to one were the odds, but not a rider that had not slain his tens and scattered his hundreds; and the weight of the Norman sword and axe the luckless raiders felt with cost. Like a sledge shattering the wood the impact smote them: there was one struggle, one wild push and rally to maintain the spear hedge. It was broken, and the Baron's men were cutting hand to hand, and hewing down the Berbers. Loud ran out the Norman war-cry, "Nostre Dame, Dieu ay nous ade," and the very shout struck terror to the hearts of the quaking pirates. An instant of deadly fencing man to man, and they were scattered. Like rats they were breaking through the thickets and dashing down the hillside; close on their heels flew Nasr and his Saracens, shooting and hewing with might and main.

But Richard had higher foes in view. The instant the pirates scattered, their six riders had struck out boldly, pushing their beasts over the walls and through the groves and hedges, all flying northward toward their only safety,—the ships. Now behind each of four riders was strapped a prisoner, and it was on these last that Richard cast chiefest eye; especially on one, for from the prisoner's throat he could see trailing red ribbons. Leaving the men to hunt down the fugitives on foot, he thrust his steed by a long leap over a hedge and was away after the mounted raiders, little recking whether he had a follower.

The wind whistled in his teeth as his good horse sped across ploughed lands, and took ditch or garden wall with noble bounds. Now he was gaining on the rearmost fugitive, a lean, black African on a stolen steed, who was weighted in his race by no less a prisoner than the reverend bishop. Richard laughed behind his helm, as he saw the holy man writhing and twisting on his uneasy pillion, and coughing forth maledictions at every jolt in the mad chase. The Norman swung up abreast the Moor, and struck out with his sword. The raider made shift to wield his cimeter, but one stroke cleft him down, and as he fell he dragged the bishop with him, who landed on the crupper with a mighty thud that made him howl to all the saints.

Richard glanced back; two or three of the Baron's men were in the far distance, the rest scattered; only Herbert on a well-tried horse flew close at hand.