Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 March 1899 — THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE

By CAPT FREDERICK WHITTAKER

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CHAPTER V.—tConrinned.) j Big Teter, with a slight smile that he could not suppress, noticed that the «kl < hermit did not attempt to control the'j young crusader, but permitted him to have . his own way, as the trumpets sounded the | advance, and the children resumed their | march. Hildebrand, like Peter the Hermit he-1 fore him, as soon as the crusade was fairly on its way. assumed no authority, fort followed in the ranks lj one of the rest. The captain of the crusade was evidently as jealous of his authority as Nicholas had been; though he exercised it in a different way. He gave all the directions to the bodies of children to march and halt. Big Peter and BNnche, whom be permitted to accomitany him. were treated with a distinction that did not extend to the hermit hitaself, save when lie was preaching. Thus they marcbed on for the rest of the day; and when night came, were within a few miles of Marseille*, tlie peasant* from all the country around f!<«ekiug to feed them, as had happened all through the journey. As soon as camp was pit died, the young leader of the crusade told Big Peter to follow him, and calks! for a mule for Father Hildebrand, who accompanied them to the city of Marseilles. It was a . fine, moonlight night and they could see their way plainly, while the i«o]«iilation of the country round had brought torches and lanterns, and were turning night into day in the excitement which had acixwnpanied the children’s crusade wherever it went. The old monk went with them because his services would be needed in dealing with outsiders. The children obeyed their leader well enough; but grown men would listen to the hermit where they would have hesitated to treat with a boy. even of Stephen’s family. Hildebrand had found a merchant named Charles Marcel, who had promised that he would furnish ■hipping for the children to Pah-slim-, and he agreed to perform his promise- as soon as he heard that the crusade had arrived. Then they rode back to the camp, and found it in a state of great excitement, tor word had just come to them that Nicholas had refused to remain under the or- , ders of Stephen any longer, and had turn- I ed the course of his march toward Italy, I while they had l<eeu disputing with old 1 Count Stephen. The crusade was breaking up.

CHAPTER VI.

This news proved true; and the children co in tn a i'' Iby Nicholas separated from those tun er Stephen and marebed toward Italy, the (teasants on the way receiving them with all the demonstrations of welcome which had greeted the whole body wherever it had gone. The old hermit, at first inclined to persuade Nicholas to come back, had encountered, in Stephen, an unexpected obstacle. The young count had absolutely refused to be bound by the orders of the oil man. ■nd declared that he was captain of the crusade, and as long as he performed his cow he would take orders from his own conscience. He insisted that, the ships being ready to take the children, it would be a tempting of Providence to let go the opportunity that might never return; and the old hermit was coiuiwdk-d to acquiesce, and embarked on the evening of the second day after their arrival at Marseilles. Then it was found that the crusade, which had already torn so many children from their parents, had been unalde to keep them together, as the hermit had hoped. Thirty thousand children had come from Vendome with Nicholas; twentythousand of these had gone off with Nicholas on their way to Italy; and half of the rest dropped off at Marseilles, leaving five thousand only as the strength of the crusade that was to capture the sepulcher from the Turks. The same number of grown men. picked warriors of Europe, would have been too feeble a force under the itest general in the wurld; but such was the enthusiastic confidence of the age in its wild enterprise that half the population of Marseilles came down to see the children embark, ■nd the ships sailed out of the harbor, the boy warriors singing the hymn of “Veni, Creator Spirit us,” with the cheerful confidence that they had only to shew themselves for all the Turks in the East to fall down and abjure their religion. Still, there was something about this crusade, under the boy count, which makes it different from others of those ill-starred enterprises. Stephen, boy as be was, had a brain that was strong and sensible, though his romantic belief in the dreams of the old hermit had carried him • away. He had but five thousand boys with him; bnt they were all armed, by the offerings of the pious, on the way; and, had they been men of experience, might bare rendered a good account of themselves. The youngest on lw«ard the fleet was sixteen, and the majority were as old as Stephen himself. Moreover, they were for the most part youths of noble fanu- ~ ties, who had been brought up to the cxercism of arms, in a way with which we vare unfamiliar to-day. They could all , shoot ibe bow or cross-bow—the latter a weapon then being introduced in France, though not yet common. They all had jirmor of some sort, if only - helmet and buckler; and provisions were plenty on the fleet, thanks to the offerings of the pious people of Marseilles and Provence in genBesides the boys, who were the warriors of the expedition, there were nearly a hundred girls on the fleet, under the

laero crowned Queen of the Crusade, with due solemnity, by Hildebrand, just before their «fa*parture front Marseilles. Their duties wero to wait on the sick and wound* d. when such were to be found in the fleet, and among them Blanche de Vaux was the only one who did not wear the crass nn her shoulder and obey the orders of the Queen of the Crusade. In fact, it was easy to see that the same jealousy that bad existed between Stephen and Nicholas, which had broken up the children's crusade into two bodies, was <pTJiins between Isabel and Blanche, hut in a different way. Blanche did not like Isabel, who returned the compliment with interest, though both were evidently f«ad of Stephen. for they were always near him. Bat likings and disliking* apart, the wind blew fair for the young crusaders and the skies were bright, and the boy count. as he stood on the lofty carved stern of the galley in which fee led his little Sket, wore an expression of rapt enthusiasm on his hacdsome young face as he said softly to Blanche: “At last, my sister, we are on the way to the land which was once trod by the feet of our Lord. I lost thou not feel already the Messing of heaven rests upon I us?" Blanche sighed slightly. ~ Isabel, who was on the other side of the young leader, answered for her. in her usual impetuous way; “The Lidy Blanche is not with ns, though she sails with us. But when we l<lant the banner of the crass on the towers of Jerusalem, then shall she wish that she had taken the eras® herself." “Not ro.” replied Blanche, steadily. “It is one thing to see Jerusalem and another to take the cross and kill men in the name of the God who said, thou shalt not kill.’ We shall see Jerusalem, but the sight will make none of us the better.” “How sayest thouT* asked the young count, sharply: for the speech of his sisI ter. in opposition to his dreams, always irritated him. dearly as he loved hew. “We shall roe Jerusalem, but the sight will make nor better? What folly is this?" Blanche turned her dark eyes on him with a strange, yearning look, that hauntid him many a year after, as she replied: “We shall roe it: but not as conquerors. ; The time is coming, and that soon, when > we shall all roe whether God is with us or not.” The young count struck the bulwark of the galley impatiently with his gauntlet, as he cried: “Now, by the cross on my shoulder, i sister, if thou hadst thought that, thou shouldst never have come with us.” Big Peter, who was standing nigh them, | U-hind his young lord, here coughed slightly, and Stephen, in the same angry manner as that with which he greeted his sister’s words, turned on him fiercely, saying: “And thou, too? Dost thou think we shall end in disaster?" Big Peter compressed his lips, and after a short pause, said, in a tone of great gravity: “What a man like me thinks will not alter the case, my lord. I came to follow my lord, ami die for him if need be. A man can do that, and the angels will find him. whether he have a cross on his shoulder or not." The impetuous but warm-hearted boy held out his hand to his faithful servant, saying: “I was wrong to chide thee. Thee, at least. 1 can trust to fight, whether it be for the cross or for me. To-morrow will show os.” “Ay. *y- "O’ ford." said Big Peter, slowly. -To-morrow will show; and it will be seen then whether the hermit Hildebrand be a prophet as be says or what my lady Blanche called him.” And this time neither the boy count nor Isabel said a word. The speech of the young vassal had cast a shade of thoughtfulness over them aIL as they realized that they had gone two far to recede. Still the heavens continued as fair and pleasant as could be desired, and the northerly befearo wafted nn the little fleet. There were ten ships of burthen, equipped with sails only, very broad and bluff in shape, in which the majority of the boy crusaders had embarked. They were trading ships, not meant for battle; and to guard them in the fight, there were five galleys—long, low vessels, with rows of oars on either side, pulled by crews of slaves, whose dark faces showed that they were Arabs or Turks—which, in truth, they were. They had been taken captive in the previous crusade* and were chained to the benches on which they sat, performing their tasks in sullen silence, wrier the lash of the masters set over them. It was a remarkable thing that the Christians, who were so loud in their complaints of the cruelties of the Turks toward Christian staves, practiced the same or greater cruelties on all the unfortunate Moslems who fell into their power. It was also remarkable that the young crusaders, whose youth should have made them tenderhearted naturally. showed toward their rowers in the galleys, on that memorable crusade, even more cruelty than the grown sailors who manned the fleet. Blanche de Vaux and Big Peter, who wore no crosses oa their shoulders, were the only people in the fleet who seemed to pity unfortunate mature* in <W>r«m£w»/the lady Mhroedbr

benches of the rowers, and actually arrested a blow that was about to fall on the shoulders of one of the unhappy creatures, who had fallen half over his oar as if completely exhausted with fatigue or sickness. “Shame on thee for one who calls himself a warrior of the cross!” she said, indignantly, to the boy who had raised his stick. “Is that the way to follow the cross? It is written: ‘lf thine enemy hunger, feed him! if he thirst, give him drink.’ Is that the way thou followest the scriptures?” The boy crusader curled his lip, though he did not dare to resist the sister of his young leader. “We shall all be forgiven our sins if the holy sepulcher,” he said. “As for these Turks, they are misbelievers and they deserve death and stripes. One infidel the less will never be missed.” Then he went away forward and Blanche turned toward the young slave whose attitude of exhaustion had brought on him the correction. The i>oor young man —for he was barely twenty —had a dark but exceedingly handsome face, though it was thin and sickly looking. His large dark eyes were full of gentleness and appeal as he cast on the beautiful girl who had saved him a glance that told of his thankfulness. Something in that look stirred all the pity in Blanche s breast, as she inquired: “What is thy ame, friend? Art thou sick?” The young slave bowed his head over his oar with a deep sigh as he answered in broken French: “My name is forgotten among my people. lady. No one remembers the slave. If he be well they beat him; if sick, they beat him harder. But Saphadim will not forget the lady in the last day.” “In the last day?” echoed the girl, puzzled. “What meanest thou?” Saphadim glanced up at Big Peter, who was looking at him in his usual stolid fashion, not showing much expression on his face. The girl understood the glance, and answered: “Speak out. We have no cross on our shoulders, and will not harm thee.” The dark eyes of the young Turk blazed with a singular fire as he replied in a low voice, as if afraid of being overheard: “In the last day, when the angel Azrael shall lead the true believers over the bridge Al Sirat, Saphadim, who has never yet omitted his prayers, will ask of the angel a boon to lead with him the lady who showed him pity, though a Christian. The rest shall be plunged in the tire that never dieth, where Eblis reigns forever.” Big Peter, with a slight smile to his young mistress at her look of puzzlement, observed, dryly: “My lady sees that the Christians are not permitted to have all the cursing to themselves. This miscreant can curse as well as old Hildebrand; and the Turks have their own hell for us, it seems.” “But what is the bridge Al Sirat?” asked Blanche, curiously. “It is the bridge over which all souls must pass at the last judgment,” said the Turk, solemnly. “It is the edge of a saber, fine as a razor, and beneath it are the fires of Eblis, or Sheitan. Into that fire will fall all who cannot call on the name of the prophet and bold the hand of the angel to guide them aright.” “And thou wilt ask the angel to let me come with thee?” asked the girl, curiously. Saphadim bowed his head solemnly. “I will, because thou art the only Christian that hath taken pity on a true believer, in his affliction.” Big Peter, with the same half-amused smile, asked, in turn: “And where shall I go, friend Turk?” Saphadim turned and eyed him narrowly, and then resumed his weary task at the oar, saying gruffly: I "Thou wilt go where it pleases God to take thee.” The big fellow laughed as he turned away, remarking to Blanche: “ ”Tis the truest word spoken yet on this galley. That shall we all do, and it will be all the same in the end.” Then the two strolled away along the line of the rowers; the lady, by her presence, checking a great deal of the brutality that was shown to the unfortunate prisoners at the oars, tiH the evening came on, and the wind fell with it. when the ships of burden took down their sails in the cautious fashion of that day, and the whole fleet rested for the night, not daring to sail on. in the absence of the compass, whiah makes navigation so easy in our days. (To ne continued.) Copyright.