"The multitude grows angry," muttered Pons de Balazan. "They have waited long." Then he went forth, and tried to calm the impatient people, and called in other proper men, to take the places of such of the twelve as had grown weary.
But no man took Richard's place. Not his own life, but the lives of a hundred thousand, shut up in that starving Antioch, hung on their toil. The chance of failure was so frightful, that not even he, whose fingers had learned so well to fight, to whom the life of a man was so small a matter, dared look that future in the face. Had the rest all forsaken, he would have toiled on, spading forth the earth, raising the dark mound higher, ever higher.
And all the company wore grim, set faces now, as they wrestled with their strengthening despair, except Peter Barthelmy and Sebastian. The monk was working with an energy surpassed only by Richard himself. Longsword saw that he was still calm, that the light in his usually terrible eyes was even mild; and as the two stood side by side in the trench, Sebastian said to him: "Why fear, dear son? Are we not in God's hands? Can He do wrong, or bring His own word to naught?"
The Norman answered with an angry gesture:—
"Truly our sins must be greater than we dreamed, to be punished thus—to be promised deliverance, and have Heaven mock us!"
Sebastian's reply was a finger pointed upward to the painted Christ, just behind the two lamps.
"Be not fearful, O ye of little faith!"
Richard fought back the doubts rising in his soul, and flung all his strength anew into his work.
The noise without the church was louder now. They could hear shouts, curses, threats, rising from a thousand throats.
"Deceiver, the devil has led him to blast us with false hopes! Impostor, he dreamed nothing! Out with them; out with them all! The whole company is leagued with Satan! Kill the false dreamer first, then yield to Kerbogha; he can only slay us!"