 | The knights of England, France, and Scotland |  |
THE TRIALS OF A TEMPLAR;
A SKETCH OF THE CRUSADES.
“The Lord is on my side; I will not fear what can man do unto me.”
Psalm cxviii. 6.
A summer-day in Syria was rapidly drawing toward its
close, as a handful of European cavalry, easily recognised by
their flat-topped helmets, cumbrous hauberks, and chargers
sheathed like their riders, in plate and mail, were toiling their
weary way through the deep sand of the desert, scorched
almost to the heat of molten lead by the intolerable glare of an
eastern sun. Insignificant in numbers, but high of heart, confident
from repeated success, elated with enthusiastic valor,
and inspiriting sense of a holy cause, they followed the guidance
of their leader, one of the best and most tried lances of the
temple, careless whither, and secure of triumph; their steel
armor glowing like burnished gold, their lance-heads flashing
in the level rays of the setting orb, and the party-colored banner
of the Beauseant hanging motionless in the still atmosphere.
Before them lay an interminable waste of bare and dusty
plain, broken into long swells succeeding each other in monotonous
regularity, though occasionally varied by stunted patches
of thorny shrubs and dwarf palm-trees. As they wheeled round
one of these thickets, their commander halted suddenly at the
crowns, as well as the springy pace of their Arab steeds,
proclaimed them natives of the soil, winding along the bottom
of the valley beneath him, with the stealthy silence of prowling
tigers. Although the enemy nearly trebled his own force
in numerical power, without a moment's hesitation Albert of
Vermandois arrayed his little band, and before the infidels had
even discovered his presence, much less drawn a blade, or concentrated
their scattered line, the dreaded war-cry rung upon
their ears — “Ha! Beauseant! for the temple! for the temple!”
and down thundered the irresistible charge of the western
crusaders on their unguarded flank. Not an instant did
the Saracens withstand the brunt of the Norman lance; they
broke away on all sides, leaving a score of their companions
stretched to rise no more on the bloody plain. Scarcely, however,
had the victors checked their blown horses, or reorganized
their phalanx, disordered by the hot struggle, when the
distant clang of cymbal, horn, and kettle-drum mingled with the
shrill lelies of the heathen sounding in every direction, announced
that their march had been anticipated, their route beset,
themselves surrounded. Hastily taking possession of the
vantage-ground afforded by an abrupt hillock, and dismissing
the lightest of his party to ride for life to the Christian camp,
and demand immediate aid, Albert awaited the onset with the
stern composure which springs from self-possession. A few
minutes sufficed to show the Christians the extent of their embarrassment,
and the imminence of their peril. Three heavy
masses of cavalry were approaching them from as many different
quarters; their gaudy turbans, gilded arms, and waving pennons
of a hundred hues, blazing in marked contrast to the stern
and martial simplicity of the iron soldiers of the west. To the
quick eye of Albert it was instantly evident that their hope consisted
in protracting the conflict till the arrival of succor; and
which the Mohammedans hurried to the attack. It seemed as
if they also were aware that, in order to conquer, they must
conquer quickly; for, contrary to their usual mode of fighting,
they charged resolutely upon the very lances of the motionless
Christians, who, in a solid circle, opposed their mailed breasts
in firm array to their volatile antagonists. Fiercely, however,
as they charged, their lighter coursers recoiled before the bone
and weight of the European war-steeds. The lances of the
crusaders were shivered in the onset; but to the thrust of these
succeeded the deadly sweep of the twohanded swords, flashing
above the cimeters of the infidel with the sway of some terrific
engine. Time after time the eastern warriors rushed on, time
after time they retreated, like the surf from some lonely rock
on which it has wasted its thunders in vain. At length they
changed their plan, and wheeling in rapid circles, poured their
arrows in as fast, and for a time as fruitlessly, as the snowstorm
of a December day. On they came again, right upon the
point where Vermandois was posted, headed by a tall chieftain,
distinguished no less by his gorgeous arms than by his gallant
bearing. Rising in his stirrups, when at a few paces distance,
he hurled his long javelin full in the face of the crusader.
Bending his crest to the saddle-bow, as the dart passed harmlessly
over him, Albert cast his massive battle-axe in return.
The tremendous missile rustled past the chief at whom it was
aimed, and smote his shield-bearer to the earth, at the very
moment when an arrow pierced the templar's charger through
the eyeball to the brain. The animal, frantic with the pain,
bounded forward and rolled lifeless, bearing his rider with him
to the ground; yet even in that last struggle the stern knight
clave the turbaned leader down to the teeth before he fell.
Five hundred horse dashed over him — his array was broken
— his companions were hewn from their saddles, even before
hoofs, disarmed, fettered, and reserved for a doom to which the
fate of his comrades had been a boon of mercy. Satisfied with
their success, and aware that a few hours at the farthest must
bring up the rescue from the Christian army, the Saracens retreated
as rapidly as they had advanced; all night long they
travelled with unabated speed toward their inaccessible fastnesses,
in the recesses of their wild mountains. Arrived at
their encampment, the prisoner was cast into a dungeon hewn
from the living rock. Day after day rolled heavily on, and
Albert lay in utter darkness, ignorant of his destiny, unvisited
by any being except the swart and bearded savage who brought
the daily pittance, scarcely sufficient for the wants of his
wretched existence.
Albert of Vermandois, a Burgundian youth of high nobility,
and yet more exalted renown, had left his native land stung
almost to madness by the early death of her to whom he had
vowed his affections, and whose name he had already made
“glorious by his sword,” from the banks of the Danube to the
pillars of Hercules. He had bound the cross upon his breast,
he had mortified all worldly desires, all earthly passions, beneath
the strict rule of his order. While yet in the flush and
pride of manhood, before a gray hair had streaked his dark
locks, or a single line wrinkled his lofty brow, he had changed
his nature, his heart, his very being; he had attained a height
of dignity and fame scarcely equalled by the best and noblest
warriors of the temple. The vigor of his arm, the vast scope
of his political foresight, no less than the unimpeached rigor
of his morals, had long rendered him a glory to his brotherhood,
a cause of terror and an engine of defeat to the Saracen
lords of the Holy Land. Many a league had been formed to
overpower, many a dark plot hatched to inveigle him; but so
invariably had he borne down all odds in open warfare before
treasons with redoubled vengeance on the heads of the
schemers, that he was almost deemed the possessor of some
cabalistic spell, framed for the downfall and destruction of the
sons of Islam.
Deep were the consultations of the infidel leaders concerning
the destiny of their formidable captive. The slaughter actually
wrought by his hand had been so fearful, the ravages
produced among their armies by his policy so unbounded, that
a large majority were in favor of his instant execution; nor
could human ingenuity devise, or brute cruelty perform, more
hellish methods of torture than were calmly discussed in that
infuriate assembly.
It was late on the third day of his captivity, when the hinges
of his dungeon-grate creaked, and a broader glare streamed
through the aperture than had hitherto disclosed the secrets of
his prisonhouse. The red light streamed from a lamp in the
grasp of a dark figure — an imaum, known by his high cap of
lambskin, his loose black robes, his parchment cincture, figured
with Arabic characters, and the long beard that flowed even
below his girdle in unrestrained luxuriance. A negro, bearing
food of a better quality, and the beverage abhorred by the prophet,
the forbidden juice of the grape, followed — his ivory teeth and
the livid circles of his eyes glittering with a ghastly whiteness
in the clear lamp-light. He arranged the unaccustomed dainties
on the rocky floor: the slave withdrew. The priest seated
himself so that the light should reveal every change of the
templar's features, while his own were veiled in deep shadow.
“Arise, young Nazarene,” he said, “arise and eat, for to-morrow
thou shalt die. Eat, drink, and let thy soul be strengthened
to bear thy doom; for as surely as there is one God, and
one prophet, which is Mohammed, so surely is the black wing
of Azrael outstretched above thee!”
“It is well,” was the unmoved reply. “I am a consecrated
knight, and how should a templar tremble? — a Christian, and
how should a follower of Jesus fear to die?”
“My brother hath spoken wisely, yet is his wisdom but folly.
Truly hast thou said, `It is well to die;' for is it not written
that the faithful and the yaoor must alike go hence? But is it
the same thing for a warrior to fall amid the flutter of banners
and the flourish of trumpets — which are to the strong man
even as the breath of his nostrils, or as the mild shower in
seedtime to the thirsty plain — and to perish by inches afar from
his comrades, surrounded by tribes to whom the very name of
his race is a by-word and a scorn?”
“Now, by the blessed light of heaven!” cried the indignant
soldier, “rather shouldst thou say a terror and a ruin; for when
have the dogs endured the waving of our pennons or the flash
of our armor? But it skills not talking — leave me, priest, for
I abhor thy creed, as I despise thy loathsome impostor!”
For a short space the wise man of the tribes was silent; he
gazed intently on the countenance of his foeman, but not a sign
of wavering or dismay could his keen eye trace in the stern
and haughty features. “Allah Acbar,” he said at length; “to
God all things are possible: would the Christian live?”
“All men would live, and I am but a man,” returned the
knight; “yet, praise be to Him where all praise is due, I have
never shrunk from death in the field, nor can he fright me on
the scaffold. If my Master has need of his servant, he who
had power to deliver Israel from bondage, and Daniel from the
jaws of the lion, surely he shall deliver my soul from the power
of the dog. And if he has appointed for me the crown of martyrdom,
it shall ne'er be said that Albert of Vermandois was
deaf to the will of the God of battles and the Lord of hosts.”
“The wise man hath said,” replied the slow, musical notes
of the priest, in strange contrast to the fiery zeal of the prisoner
standeth firm than the tower which tottereth to its fall.' Will
my brother hear reason? Cast away the cross from thy breast,
bind the turban upon thy brow, and behold thou shalt be as a
prince among our people!”
“Peace, blasphemer! I spit at thee — I despise, I defy thee!
I, a worshipper of the living Jehovah, shall I debase myself to
the camel-driver of Mecca? Peace! begone!” He turned
his face to the wall, folded his arms upon his chest, and was
silent. No entreaties, no threats of torment, no promises of
mercy, could induce him again to open his lips. His eyes
were fixed as if they beheld some shape, unseen by others;
his brow was calm, and, but for a slight expression of scorn
about the muscles of the mouth, he might have passed for a
visionary.
After a time, the imaum arose, quitted the cell, and the warrior
was again alone. But a harder trial was yet before him.
The door of his prison opened yet once more, and a form entered
— a being whom the poets in her own land of minstrelsey
would have described under the types of a young date-tree,
bowing its graceful head to the breath of evening; of a pure
spring in the burning desert; of a gazelle, bounding over the
unshaken herbage; of a dove, gliding on the wings of the morning!
And of a truth she was lovely: her jetty hair braided
above her transparent brow, and floating in a veil of curls over
her shoulders; her large eyes swimming in liquid languor;
and, above all, that indescribable charm —
“The mind, the music breathing from her face” —
can boast, yet rounded into the fairest mould of female beauty
— all combined to make up a creature resembling rather a houri
of Mohammed's paradise than
“One of earth's least earthly daughters.”
For a moment the templar gazed, as if he doubted whether
he were not looking upon one of those spirits which are said to
have assailed and almost shaken the sanctity of many a holy
anchorite. His heart, for the first time in many years, throbbed
wildly. He bowed his head between his knees, and prayed
fervently; nor did he again raise his eyes, till a voice, as harmonious
as the breathing of a lute, addressed him in the lingua-Franca:—
“If the sight of his hand-maiden is offensive to the eyes of
the Nazarene, she will depart as she came, in sorrow.”
The soldier lifted up his eyes, and saw her bending over him
with so sad an expression of tenderness, that, despite of himself,
his heart melted within him, and his answer was courteous
and even kind: “I thank thee, dear lady, I thank thee for thy
good will, though it can avail me nothing. But wherefore does
one so fair, and it may well be so happy as thou art, visit the
cell of a condemned captive?”
“Say not condemned — oh, say not condemned! Thy servant
is the bearer of life, and freedom, and honor. She saw
thy manly form, she looked upon thine undaunted demeanor,
and she loved thee — loved thee to distraction — would follow
thee to the ends of earth — would die to save thee — has already
saved thee, if thou wilt be saved! Rank, honor, life,
and love —”
“Lady,” he interrupted her, “listen! For ten long years I
have not lent my ear to the witchery of a woman's voice. Ten
years ago, I was the betrothed lover of a maid, I had well-nigh
said, as fair as thou art. She died — died, and left me desolate!
I have fled from my native land; I have devoted to my
God the feelings which I once cherished for your sex. I could
not give thee love in return for thy love; nor would I stoop to
feign that which I felt not, although it were to win, not temporal,
but eternal life.”
“Oh! dismiss me not,” she sobbed, as she threw her white
arms around his neck, and panted on his bosom; “oh! dismiss
me not thus. I ask no vows; I ask no love. Be but mine;
let my country be your country, my God yours — and you are
safe and free!”
“My Master,” he replied coldly, as he disengaged her grasp,
and removed her from his arms, “hath said, `What would it
profit a man, if he should gain the whole world, and lose his
own soul?' I have listened to thee, lady, and I have answered
thee; but my heart is heavy — for it is mournful to see that so
glorious a form should be the habitation of so frail a spirit. I
pray thee, leave me! To-morrow I shall meet my God, and
I would commune with him now in spirit and in truth!”
Slowly she turned away, wrapped her face in her veil, and
moved with faltering steps — wailing as if her heart were about
to burst — through the low portal. The gate clanged heavily
as she departed; but the sounds of her lamentation were audible
long after the last being, who would show a sign of pity for
his woes, or of admiration for his merits, had gone forth, never
again to return!
All night long the devotions, the fervent and heartfelt prayers
of the crusader, ascended to the throne of his Master; and
often, though he struggled to suppress the feeling, a petition
for his lovely though deluded visiter was mingled with entreaties
for strength to bear the fate he anticipated.
Morning came at last, not as in frigid climates of the North
— creeping through its slow gradations of gray dawn and dappling
twilight — but bursting at once from night into perfect
day. The prison-gates were opened for the last time, the fetters
were struck off from the limbs of the undaunted captive,
and himself led forth like a victim to the sacrifice.
From leagues around, all the hordes of the desert had come
together, in swarms outnumbering the winged motes that stream
under other circumstances, would have been a glorious spectacle.
In a vast sandy basin, surrounded on every side by low
but rugged eminences, were the swarthy sons of Syria mustered,
rank above rank, to feast their eyes on the unwonted
spectacle of a Christian's sufferings. The rude tribes of the
remotest regions, Arab and Turcoman, mounted on the uncouth
dromedary, or on steeds of matchless symmetry and unstained
pedigree, mingling their dark baracans with the brilliant arms
and gorgeous garbs of the sultan's court — even the unseen
beauties of a hundred harems watched from their canopied litters
the preparations for the execution with as much interest
and as little concern as the belles of our own day exhibit before
the curtain has been drawn aside which is to disclose the
performances of a Pedrotti or a Malibran to the enraptured
audience.
In the centre of this natural amphitheatre stood the scathed
and whitening trunk of a thunder-stricken palm. To this inartificial
stake was the captive led. One by one his garments
were torn asunder, till his muscular form and splendid proportions
were revealed in naked majesty to the wondering multitude.
Once, before he was attached to the fatal tree, a formal
offer of life, and liberty, and high office in the moslem court,
was tendered to him, on condition of his embracing the faith
of the prophet — and refused by one contemptuous motion of
his hand. He was bound firmly to the stump, with his hands
secured far above his head. At some fifty paces distant, stood
a group of dark and fierce warriors, with bended bows and
well-filled quivers, evidently awaiting the signal to pour in their
arrowy sleet upon his unguarded limbs. He gazed upon them
with a countenance unmoved and serene, though somewhat
paler than its usual tints. His eyes did not, however, long
dwell on the unattractive sight: he turned them upward, and
the ear of the bystanders.
Some minutes had elapsed thus, when the shrill voice of the
muezzin was heard, proclaiming the hour of matin-prayer in
his measured chant: “There is no God but God, and Mohammed
is his prophet!” In an instant the whole multitude were
prostrate in the dust, and motionless as though the fatal blast
of the simoom was careering through the tainted atmosphere.
A flash of contempt shot across the features of the templar, but
it quickly vanished in a more holy expression, as he muttered
to himself the words used on a far more memorable occasion,
by Divinity itself: “Forgive them, Lord; they know not what
they do!”
The pause was of short duration. With a rustle like the
voice of the forest when the first breath of the rising tempest
agitates its shivering foliage, the multitude rose to their feet.
A gallant horseman dashed from the cavalcade which thronged
around the person of their sultan, checked his steed beside the
archer-band, spoke a few hasty words, and galloped back to
his station.
Another minute — and arrow after arrow whistled from the
Paynim bows, piercing the limbs and even grazing the body
of the templar; but not a murmur escaped from the victim —
scarcely did a frown contract his brow. There was an irradiation,
as if of celestial happiness, upon his countenance; nor
could a spectator have imagined for a moment that his whole
frame was almost convulsed with agony, but for the weapons
quivering even to their feathered extremities in every joint,
and the large blood-drops trickling like rain upon the thirsty
soil!
Again there was a pause. Circled by his Nubian guard,
and followed by the bravest and the brightest of his court, the
sultan himself rode up to the bleeding crusader. Yet, even
goodly in person, and sublime in bearing, the monarch of the
East was shamed — shamed like a slave before his master —
by the native majesty of Christian virtue; nor could the prince
at first find words to address the tortured mortal who stood at
his feet with the serene deportment which would have beseemed
the judge upon his tribunal no less than the martyr at
the stake.
“Has the Nazarene yet learned experience from the bitter
sting of adversity? The skill of the leech may yet assuage
thy wounds, and the honors which shall be poured upon thee
may yet efface thine injuries — even as the rich grain conceals
in its luxuriance the furrows of the ploughshare! Will the
Nazarene live? or will he die the death of a dog?”
“The Lord is on my side,” was the low but firm reply —
“the Lord is on my side: I will not fear what man doeth unto
me!”
On swept the monarch's train, and again the iron shower
fell fast and fatally — not as before, on the members, but on the
broad chest and manly trunk. The blood gushed forth in
blacker streams; the warrior's life was ebbing fast away —
when from the rear of the broken hills a sudden trumpet blew
a point of war in notes so thrilling, that it pierced the ears like
the thrust of some sharp weapon. Before the astonishment of
the crowd had time to vent itself in word or deed, the eminences
were crowded with the mail-clad myriads of the Christian
forces! Down they came, like the blast of the tornado on
some frail and scattered fleet, with war-cry, and the clang of
instruments, and the thick trampling of twice ten thousand
hoofs. Wo to the sons of the desert in that hour! They were
swept away before the mettled steeds and levelled lances of the
templars like dust before the wind, or stubble before the devouring
flame!
The eye of the dying hero lightened as he saw the banners
of his countrymen. His whole form dilated with exultation
and triumph. He tore his arm from its fetters, waved it around
his blood-stained forehead, and for the last time shouted forth
his cry of battle: “Ha! Beauseant! A Vermandois for the
temple!” Then, in a lower tone, he cried: “`Lord, now lettest
thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word;
for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”' He bowed his head,
and his undaunted spirit passed away.
| The knights of England, France, and Scotland | |