"Fair princes," cried the latter, "we are at our wits' end. There will soon be no strength left in a man of us to strike a blow, and the Moslems will take us with bare hands. Dishonor to desert, and we will never separate. Yet let us bow to God's will. His favor is not with the Crusade. Let us cut our way down to the port, and escape as many as can."
"And so say I," called Duke Robert. "And I," came from Hugh of Vermandois. "And I," shouted many of the lesser barons. But Tancred, bravest of the brave, stood up with flashing eyes. "I speak for myself. I reproach no man, seigneur or villain. But while sixty companions remain by me, of whatever degree, I will trust God, and keep my face toward His city!"
"There spoke a true lover of Christ," cried Adhemar, his honest eyes beaming; and Godfrey's haggard face brightened a little. "You are a gallant knight, my Lord Prince," said he. "These others will think differently when they have slept on their words. Better starve here than return to France, if return we can. We have asked Kerbogha's terms—we have them. 'The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel,' as says Holy Writ. How can we return with all the paynim nations jeering at us, crying, 'See! See the boasted Frankish valor!' We can do no more to-day; let us meet again to-morrow."
"To-morrow we shall be yet hungrier," muttered Guy of Tarentum, as he went out at Longsword's side. "Except a miracle come of God, Kerbogha has us." "Except a miracle!" repeated Adhemar. Richard carried home the words. Had God turned away His face from His children? Were the brave days when the Red Sea swallowed Pharaoh's myriads, when four lepers delivered starving Samaria from the Syrian hosts but as jongleurs' tales of things long gone by? He told Sebastian what had passed among the chieftains, and Sebastian only answered with a wandering gaze toward heaven.
"These are the days of God's wrath! Now appears the host foretold in the Apocalypse—the four angels loosed from the river Euphrates, come forth with their army of horsemen, two hundred thousand, and for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, shall they slay the third part of mankind."
"Father," said Richard, "do you know what the princes say? 'Except a miracle, we are delivered to Kerbogha.' Are the days of God's mercy spent? Were the Jews more righteous than we, that they should be saved by wonders from heaven, and we perish like oxen? I speak not for my own sake—though the saints know it is hard to keep a stout heart over a nipping belly—but for my men, for the whole host. Pestilence is treading behind the famine. This day five thousand have died in Antioch—cursing the hour they took the cross and the God who led them forth. I say again: How can these things be—God sit silent in yonder blue heaven, and still be good?"
Sebastian brushed his bony hand across his face as though driving away a mist, and ran on wildly:—
"Kerbogha is the beast foretold in the beginning! The beast and the false prophet, which is Mohammed, have deceived those who have the mark of the beast; and all such with those that have worshipped his image shall share with the beast and the false prophet in the lake of fire, burning with brimstone."
"Yes, dear father," said Richard, simply; "but the vengeance of God is long delayed!"
Sebastian gave no answer. All that afternoon he went among the dying, who lay like dogs in the streets, holding up the crucifix, telling them of the martyrs' joys; that death by sickness and famine was no less a sacrifice to God than death by the sword.