University of Virginia Library

THE RENEGADO;
A SKETCH OF THE CRUSADES.

For well nigh two long years had the walls of Acre rung to
the war-cries and clashing arms of the contending myriads of
Christian and Mohammedan forces, while no real advantage
had resulted to either army, from the fierce and sanguinary
struggles that daily alarmed the apprehensions, or excited the
hopes of the besieged. The rocky heights of Carmel now
echoed to the flourish of the European trumpet, and now sent
back the wilder strains of the Arabian drum and cymbal. On the
one side were mustered the gigantic warriors of the western forests,
from the wild frontiers of Germany, and the shores of the
Baltic; while on the other were assembled the Moslems of
Egypt, Syria, and Arabia, the wandering tribes from the Tigris
to the banks of the Indus, and the swarthy hordes of the Mauritanian
desert. Not a day passed unnoted by some bloody
skirmish or pitched battle; — at one time the sultan forced his
way into the beleaguered city, and the next moment the crusaders
plundered the camp of the Mohammedan. As often
as by stress of weather the European fleet was driven from its

blockading station, so often were fresh troops poured in to replace
the exhausted garrison; and as fast as the sword of the
infidel, or the unsparing pestilence, thinned the camp of the
crusaders, so fast was it replenished by fresh swarms of pilgrims,
burning with enthusiastic ardor, and aspiring to re-establish
the dominion of the Latin kings within the precincts of
the holy city.

Suddenly, however, the aspect of affairs was altered; a
change took place in the tactics of the paynim leaders — a
change which, in the space of a few weeks, wrought more
havoc in the lines of the invaders than months of open warfare.
The regular attacks of marshalled front and steady fighting,
wherein the light cavalry of the Turkish and Saracen tribes
invariably gave way before the tremendous charges of the steel-clad
knights, were exchanged for an incessant and harassing
war of outposts. Not a drop of water could be conveyed into
the Christian camp, unless purchased by a tenfold effusion of
noble blood; not a picket could be placed in advance of their
position, but it was inevitably surrounded and cut off; not a
messenger could be despatched to any Latin city, but he was
intercepted, and his intelligence rendered subservient to the
detriment and destruction of the inventors.

Nor was it long before the author of this new system was
discovered. In every affair a chieftain was observed, no less
remarkable for his powerful make, far exceeding the stature and
slight, though sinewy, frame of his oriental followers, than for
his skill in disposing his irregular horsemen, so as to act with
the greatest possible advantage against his formidable, but cumbrous
opponents. His arms and equipment, moreover, distinguished
him yet more clearly than his huge person from his
paynim coadjutors. His brows indeed were turbaned, but beneath
the embroidered shawl and glittering tiara he wore the
massive cerveilliere and barred vizor of the European headpiece;

instead of the fluttering caftan and light hauberk, his whole form
was sheathed in solid mail; the steed which he bestrode showed
more bone and muscle than the swift but slender coursers of
the desert, and was armed on chest and croup with plates of
tempered steel. Nor, though he avoided to risk his light-armed
troops against their invulnerable opponents, did he himself
shrink from the encounter; on the contrary, ever leading the
attack and covering the retreat, it seemed his especial delight
to mingle hand to hand with the best lances of the temple.
Many a knight had fallen beneath the sweep of his tremendous
blade, and these not of the unknown and unregarded multitude;
for it was ever from among the noblest and the best that he
singled out his antagonists — his victims — for of all who had
gone against him, not one had been known to return. So
great was the annoyance wrought to the armies of the cross by
the policy, as well as by the valor of the moslem chief, that
every method had been contrived for overpowering him by
numbers, or deceiving him by stratagem; still the sagacity and
foresight of the infidel had penetrated their deep devices, with
a certainty as unerring as that with which his huge battle-axe
had cloven their proudest crests.

To such a pitch had the terror of his prowess extended, that
not content with the reality, in itself sufficiently gloomy, the
soldiers had begun to invest him with the attributes of a
superhuman avenger. It was observed, that save the gold
and crimson scarf which bound his iron temples, he was black
from head to heel-stirrup, and spur, and crest, the trappings of
his charger, and the animal itself, all dark as the raven's wing
— that, more than once since he had fought in the van of the
mussulmans, strange shouts had been heard ringing above the
lelies of the paynim, and repeating the hallowed war-cry of the
Christian in tones of hellish derision — once, too, when he had
utterly destroyed a little band of templars, a maimed and

wounded wretch, who had escaped from the carnage of his
brethren, skulking beneath his lifeless horse, averred that,
while careering at his utmost speed, the charger of the mysterious
warrior had swerved in mad consternation from the
consecrated banner, which had been hurled to the earth, and
that the sullen head of the rider had involuntarily bowed to the
saddle-bow as he dashed onward in his course of blood and
ruin; and in truth there was enough of the marvellous — in the
activity by which he avoided all collision with a superior force,
and in the victories which he bore off day by day from the
men who, till he had come upon the stage, had only fought to
conquer — to palliate, if not to justify, some vague and shadowy
terrors, in an age when the truth of supernatural interference,
whether of saints or demons, was believed as implicitly as the
holy writ. Men, who a few weeks before would have gone
forth to battle against a threefold array of enemies rejoicing as
if to a banquet, now fought faintly, and began to look for safety
in a timely retreat, rather than in the deeds of their own right
hands, as soon as they beheld the sable form of that adversary,
whom all regarded as something more than a mere human foe;
while many believed, that if not a natural incarnation of the
evil principle, he was, at least, a mortal endowed with power
to work the mischief designed for his performance, by the inveterate
malignity of the arch-fiend himself. And it was a
fact, very characteristic of the period at which these events
occurred, that the most accomplished warriors of the time bestowed
as much attention on the framing of periapt, and spell,
and all the arms of spiritual war, as on their mere earthly
weapons, the spear, the buckler, and the steed.

The middle watch of night was long passed, and the sky
was overcast with heavy clouds — what little air was stirring
came in blasts as close and scorching as though they issued
from the mouth of an oven. The camp of the crusaders

was silent, and sleeping, all but the vigilant guards, ever
on the alert to catch the faintest sound, which might portend a
sally from the walls of the city, or a surprise of the indefatigable
Saladin from without.

In the pavilion of Lusignan, the nominal leader of the expedition,
all the chiefs of the crusade had met in deep consultation.
But the debate was ended; one by one they had retired
to their respective quarters, and the Latin monarch was left
alone, to muse on the brighter prospects which were opening
to his ambition in the approach of Philip Augustus and the lion-hearted
Richard, at the head of such an array of gallant spirits
as might justify his most extravagant wishes. Suddenly his
musings were interrupted by sounds, remote at first, but gradually
thickening upon his ear. The faint blast of a distant
trumpet, and the challenge of sentries, was succeeded by the
hurried tramp of approaching footsteps; voices were heard in
eager and exulting conversation, and lights were seen marshalling
the new-comers to the royal tent. A few moments, and a
knot of his most distinguished knights stood before him, and,
with fettered hands, and his black armor soiled with dust and
blood, the mysterious warrior of the desert, a captive in the
presence of his conquerors.

The narration of the victory was brief. A foraging-party
had ridden forth on the preceding morning, never to return! —
for, instructed by his scouts, the infidel had beset their march,
had assaulted them at nightfall, and destroyed them to a man.
But his good fortune had at last deserted him. A heavy body
of knights, with their archers and sergeants, returning from a
distant excursion, had come suddenly upon his rear when he
was prosecuting his easy triumph. The moslems, finding themselves
abruptly compelled to act on the defensive, were seized
by one of those panics to which all night-attacks are so liable —
were thrown into confusion, routed, and cut to pieces. Their

commander, on the first appearance of the Christians, had
charged with his wonted fury, before he perceived that he was
deserted by all, and surrounded past the hope of escape. Heretofore
he had fought for victory, now he fought for revenge and
for death; and never had he enacted such prodigies of valor as
now when that valor was about to be extinguished for ever!
Quarter was offered to him, and the tender answered by redoubled
blows of his weighty axe. Before he could be taken,
he had surrounded himself with a rampart of dead; and when
at length numbers prevailed, and he was a prisoner, so deep
was the respect of the victors toward so gallant a foe, that all
former prejudices vanished: and when he had opposed the first
attempt to remove his vizor, he was conveyed, unquestioned
and in all honor, to the tent of the Latin king.

The time had arrived when further concealment was impracticable.
The captive stood before the commander of the crusading
force; and the rules of war, no less than the usages of
that chivalrous courtesy practised alike by the warriors of the
West and their oriental foemen, required that he should remove
the vizor which still concealed his features. Still, however, he
stood motionless, with his arms folded across his breast, resembling
rather the empty panoply which adorns some hero's monument
than a being instinct with life, and agitated by all the
passions to which the mortal heart is liable. Words were addressed
to him in the lingua-Franca, or mixed language, which
had obtained during those frequent intervals of truce which
characterized the nature of the holy wars — breaking into the
bloody gloom of strife as an occasional ray of sunshine illuminates
the day of storm and darkness — but no effect was produced
by their sound on the proud or perhaps uncomprehending
prisoner.

For a moment, their former terrors, which had vanished on
the fall of their dreaded opponent, appeared to have regained

their ascendency over the superstitious hearts of the unenlightened
warriors: many there were who confidently expected that
the removal of the iron mask would disclose the swart and
thunder-stricken brow, the fiery glance, and the infernal aspect,
of the prince of darkness! No resistance was offered
when the chamberlain of Guy de Lusignan stepped forward,
and with all courtesy unlaced the fastenings of the casque and
gorget. The clasps gave way, and scarcely could a deeper
consternation or a more manifest astonishment have fallen upon
the beholders had the king of terrors himself glared forth in
awful revelation from that iron panoply. It was no dark-complexioned
Saracen —
with whiskered lip and aquiline features, who struck such a
chill by his appearance on every heart. The pale skin, the
full blue eye, the fair curls that clustered round the lofty brow,
bespoke an unmixed descent from the tribes of some northern
land of mountain and forest; and that eye, that brow, those lineaments,
were all familiar to the shuddering circle as the reflexion
of their own in the polished mirror.

One name burst at once from every lip in accents of the
deepest scorn. It was the name of one whose titles had stood
highest upon their lists of fame; whose deeds had been celebrated
by many a wandering minstrel even among the remote
hills of Caledonia or the morasses of green Erin; the valor of
whose heart and the strength of whose arm had been related
far and near by many a pilgrim; whose untimely fall had been
mourned by many a maid beside the banks of his native Rhine!
— “Arnold of Falkenhorst!” The frame of the culprit was
convulsed till the meshes of his linked mail clattered from the
nervous motion of the limbs which they enclosed; a crimson
flush passed across his countenance, but not a word escaped

from his lips, and he gazed straight before him with a fixed,
unmeaning stare — how sadly changed from the glance of fire
which would so short a time ago have quelled with its indignant
lightning the slightest opposition to his indomitable
pride!

For an instant all remained petrified, as it were, by wonder
and vexation of spirit. The next moment a fierce rush toward
the captive, with naked weapons and bended brows, threatened
immediate destruction to the wretched renegado.

Scarcely, however, was this spirit manifested, before it was
checked by the grand-master of the temple, who stood beside
the seat of Lusignan. He threw his venerable person between
the victim and the uplifted weapons that thirsted for his
blood.

“Forbear!” he cried, in the deep tones of determination —
“forbear, soldiers of the cross, and servants of the Most High!
Will ye contaminate your knightly swords with the base gore
of a traitor to his standard, a denier of his God? Fitter the
axe of the headsman, or the sordid gibbet, for the recreant and
coward! Say forth, Beau Sire de Lusignan — have I spoken
well?”

“Well and nobly hast thou spoken, Amaury de Montleon,”
replied the monarch. “By to-morrow's dawn shall the captive
meet the verdict of his peers; and if they condemn him — by
the cross which I wear on my breast, and the faith to which I
trust for salvation, shall he die like a dog on the gallows, and
his name shall be infamous for ever! Lead him away, Sir
John de Crespigny, and answer for your prisoner with your
head! And you, fair sirs, meet me at sunrise in the tiltyard:
there will we sit in judgment before our assembled hosts, and
all men shall behold our doom. Till then, farewell!”

In the dogged silence of despair was the prisoner led away,
and in the silence of sorrow and dismay the barons of that proud

array passed away from the presence of the king: and the night
was again solitary and undisturbed.

It wanted a full hour of the appointed time for the trial, when
the swarming camp poured forth its many-tongued multitudes
to the tiltyard. The volatile Frenchman, the proud and taciturn
Castilian, the resolute Briton, and the less courtly knights
of the German empire, crowded to the spot. It was a vast
enclosure, surrounded with palisades, and levelled with the
greatest care, for the exhibition of that martial skill on which
the crusaders set so high a value, and provided with elevated
seats for the judges of the games — now to be applied to a more
important and awful decision.

The vast multitude was silent, every feeling absorbed in
breathless expectation; every brow was knit, and every heart
was quivering with that sickening impatience which makes us
long to know all that is concealed from our vision by the dark
clouds of futurity, even if that all be the worst —

This expectation had already reached its highest pitch, when,
as the sun reared his broad disk in a flood of radiance above
the level horizon of the desert, a mournful and wailing blast of
trumpets announced the approach of the judges. Arrayed in
their robes of peace, with their knightly belts and spurs, rode
the whilome monarch of Jerusalem, and the noblest chiefs of
every different nation which had united to form one army under
the guidance of one commander. Prelates, and peers, and
knights — all who had raised themselves above the mass, in
which all were brave and noble, by distinguished talents of
either war or peace — had been convoked to sit in judgment
on a cause which concerned no less the welfare of the holy
church and the interests of religion than the discipline and
laws of war. The peers of France and England, and the dignitaries
of the empire, many of whom were present, although
their respective kings had not yet reached the shores of Palestine
— were clad in their robes and caps of maintenance, the
knights in the surcoats and collars of their orders, and the prelates
in all the splendor of pontifical decoration. A strong
body of knights, whose rank did not as yet entitle them to seats
in the council, were marshalled like pillars of steel, in full
caparison of battle, around the listed field, to prevent the escape
of the prisoner, no less than to guard his person from premature
violence, had such been attempted by the enthusiastic and indignant
concourse.

Arnold of Falkenhorst — stripped of his Moorish garb, and
wearing in its stead his discarded robes of knighthood, his collar
and blazoned shield about his neck, his golden spurs on his
heel, and his swordless scabbard belted to his side — was
placed before his peers, to abide their verdict. Beside him
stood a page, displaying his crested burgonet and the banner of
his ancient house, and behind him a group of chosen warders,
keeping a vigilant watch on every motion. But the precaution
seemed needless: the spirits of the prisoner had sunk, and he
seemed deserted alike by the almost incredible courage which
he had so often displayed, and by the presence of mind for
which he had been so widely and so justly famous. His countenance,
even to his lips, was as white as sculptured marble,
and his eyes had a dead and vacant glare; and scarcely did he
seem conscious of the purpose for which that multitude was
collected around him. Once, and once only, as his eye fell
upon the fatal tree, which cast its long shadow in terrible distinctness
across the field of judgment, with its accursed noose,
and the ministers of blood around it, a rapid and convulsive
shudder ran through every limb; it was but a momentary affection,
and, when passed, no sign of emotion could be traced in

his person, unless it were a slight and almost imperceptible
rocking of his whole frame from side to side, as he stood awaiting
his doom. Utter despondency seemed to have taken possession
of his whole soul; and the soldier who had looked unmoved
into the very eye of death in the field, sunk like the
veriest coward under the apprehensions of that fate which he
had no longer the resolution to bear like a man.

The herald stepped forth, in his quartered tabard and crown
of dignity, and the trumpeter by his side blew a summons on
his brazen instrument that might have waked the dead. While
the sounds were yet ringing in the ears of all, the clear voice
of the king-at-arms cried aloud: “Arnold of Falkenhorst, count,
banneret, and baron, hear! Thou standest this day before thy
peers, accused of heresy and treason; a forsworn and perjured
knight; a deserter from thy banner, and a denier of thy God;
leagued with the pagan dogs against the holy church; a recreant,
a traitor, and a renegado; with arms in thine hands wert
thou taken, battling against the cross which thou didst swear to
maintain with the best blood of thy veins! Speak! dost thou
disavow the deed?”

The lips of Arnold moved, but no words came forth. It
seemed as if some swelling convulsion of his throat smothered
his utterance. There was a long pause, all expecting that the
prisoner would seek to justify his defection, or challenge — as
his last resource — the trial by the judgment of God. The
rocking motion of his frame increased, and it almost appeared
as if he were about to fall upon the earth. The trumpet's din
again broke the silence, and the herald's voice again made
proclamation:

“Arnold of Falkenhorst, speak now, or hear thy doom! —
and then for ever hold thy peace!”

No answer was returned to the second summons; and, at
the command of Lusignan, the peers and princes of the crusade

were called upon for their award. Scarcely had he ceased,
before the assembled judges rose to their feet like a single
man. In calm determination they laid each one his extended
hand upon his breast, and, like the distant mutterings of thunder,
was heard the fatal verdict — “Guilty, upon mine honor!”

The words were caught up by the myriads that were collected
around, and shouted till the welkin rang: “Guilty, guilty!
— To the gibbet with the traitor!”

As soon as the tumult was appeased, Guy de Lusignan arose
from his lofty seat, and — the herald making proclamation after
him — pronounced the judgment of the court:—

“Arnold of Falkenhorst, whilome count of the empire, belted
knight, and sworn soldier of the cross! by thy peers hast thou
been tried, and by thy peers art thou condemned! Traitor,
recreant, and heretic — discourteous gentleman, false knight,
and fallen Christian — hear thy doom! The crest shall be
erased from thy burgonet; the spurs shall be hewn from thine
heels; the bearings of thy shield shall be defaced; the name
of thy house shall be forgotten! To the holy church are thy
lands and lordships forfeit! On the gibbet shalt thou die like
a dog, and thy body shall be food for the wolf and the vulture!”

“It is the will of God,” shouted the assembled nations, “it
is the will of God!”

As soon as the sentence was pronounced — painful, degrading,
abhorrent as that sentence was — some portion of the
prisoner's anxiety was relieved; at least, his demeanor was
more firm. He raised his eyes, and looked steadily upon the
vast crowd which was exulting in his approaching degradation.
If there was no composure on his brow, neither was there that
appearance of abject depression by which his soul and body
had appeared to be alike prostrated. Nay, for an instant his
eye flashed and his lip curled, as he tore the collar of knighthood
and the shield from his neck, and cast them at the feet of

the herald, who was approaching to fulfil the decree. “I had
discarded them before,” he said, “nor does it grieve me now
to behold them thus.” Yet, notwithstanding the vaunt, his
proud spirit was stung — stung more deeply by the sense of
degradation than by the fear of death. The spurs which had
so often goaded his charger to glory, amid the acclamations and
admiration of thousands, were hacked from his heels by the
sordid cleaver; the falcon-crest, which had once been a rallying-point
and a beacon amid the dust and confusion of the fight,
was shorn from his casque; the quarterings of many a noble family
were erased from his proud escutcheon, and the shield itself
reversed and hung aloft upon the ignominious tree. The pride
which had burst into a momentary blaze of indignation, had
already ceased to act upon his flagging spirits; and, when a
confessor was tendered to him, and he was even offered the
privilege of readmission within the pale of the church, he
trembled.

“The crime — if crime there be — is his,” he said, pointing
toward Guy de Lusignan. “I had served him, and served the
cross, as never man did, had he not spurned me with injury, and
disgraced me before his court, when I sought the hand of her
whom I had rescued by my lance from paynim slavery. Had I
been the meanest soldier in the Christian army, my deeds had
won me a title to respect, at least, if not to favor. De Lusignan
and his haughty daughter drove me forth to seek those rights
and that honor from the gratitude of the infidel which were denied
by my brothers-in-arms. If I am a sinner, he made me
what I am; and now he slays me for it! I say not, `Let him
give me the hand which he then denied me;' but let him spare
my life, and I am again a Christian; my sword shall again
shine in the van of his array; the plots, the stratagems, the
secrets of the moslem, shall be his. I, even I, the scorned and
condemned renegado, can do more to replace De Lusignan on

the throne of Jerusalem than the lances of ten thousand crusaders
— ay, than the boasted prowess of Cœur de Lion, or the
myriads of France and Austria! All this will I do for him —
all this, and more — if he but grants me life. I can not — I
dare not die! — What said I? — I a Falkenhorst, and dare
not!”

“Thy life is forfeit,” replied the unmoved priest; “thy life
is forfeit, and thy words are folly. For who would trust a traitor
to his liege lord, a deserter of his banner, and a denier of
his faith? Death is before thee — death and immortality! Beware
lest it be an immortality of evil and despair — of the flame
that is unquenchable — of the worm that never dies! I say
unto thee, `Put not thy trust in princes,' but turn thee to Him
who alone can say, `Thy sins be forgiven!' Bend thy knee
before the throne of grace; pluck out the bitterness from thine
heart, and the pride from thy soul; and `though thy sins be
redder than scarlet, behold they shall be whiter than snow!'
Confess thy sins, and repent thee of thy transgressions, and He
who died upon the mount for sinners, even he shall open unto
thee the gates of everlasting life.”

“It is too late,” replied the wretched culprit, “it is too late!
If I die guilty, let the punishment light on those who shall have
sent me to my last account. Away, priest! give me life, or
leave me!”

“Slave!” cried the indignant priest — “slave and coward,
perish! — and be thy blood, and the blood of Him whom thou
hast denied, upon thine own head!”

Not another word was spoken. He knew that all was hopeless
— that he must die, unpitied and despised; and in sullen
silence he yielded himself to his fate. The executioners led
him to the fatal tree: his arms were pinioned — the noose adjusted
about his muscular neck. In dark and gloomy despair
he looked for the last time around him. He gazed upon the

lists, which had so often witnessed the display of his unrivalled
horsemanship, and echoed to the applauses which greeted his
appearance on the field of mimic war; he gazed on many a familiar
and once-friendly face, all scowling on him in hatred
and disdain. Heart-sick, hopeless, and dismayed, he closed
his aching eyes; and, as he closed them, the trumpets, to whose
cheering sound he had so often charged in glory, rang forth the
signal of his doom! The pulleys creaked hoarsely — the rope
was tightened even to suffocation — and the quivering frame
struggled out its last agonies, amid the unheeded execrations
of the infuriate multitude!