Many a day had gone by since the brethren bade farewell
to Rosamund at Damascus. Now, one burning July
night, they sat upon their horses, the moonlight gleaming
on their mail. Still as statues they sat, looking
out from a rocky mountain top across that grey and
arid plain which stretches from near Nazareth to the
lip of the hills at whose foot lies Tiberias on the
Sea of Galilee. Beneath them, camped around the
fountain of Seffurieh, were spread the hosts of the
Franks to which they did sentinel; thirteen hundred
knights, twenty thousand foot, and hordes of Turcopoles—that
is, natives of the country, armed after the fashion
of the Saracens. Two miles away to the southeast
glimmered the white houses of Nazareth, set in the
lap of the mountains. Nazareth, the holy city,
where for thirty years lived and toiled the Saviour
of the world. Doubtless, thought Godwin, His
feet had often trod that mountain whereon they stood,
and in the watered vales below His hands had sped
the plow or reaped the corn. Long, long had His
voice been silent, yet to Godwin’s ears it still
seemed to speak in the murmur of the vast camp, and
to echo from the slopes of the Galilean hills, and
the words it said were: “I bring not peace,
but a sword.”
To-morrow they were to advance, so rumour said, across
yonder desert plain and give battle to Saladin, who
lay with all his power by Hattin, above Tiberias.
Godwin and his brother thought that it was a madness;
for they had seen the might of the Saracens and ridden
across that thirsty plain beneath the summer sun.
But who were they, two wandering, unattended knights,
that they should dare to lift up their voices against
those of the lords of the land, skilled from their
birth in desert warfare? Yet Godwin’s heart
was troubled and fear took hold of him, not for himself,
but for all the countless army that lay asleep yonder,
and for the cause of Christendom, which staked its
last throw upon this battle.
“I go to watch yonder; bide you here,”
he said to Wulf, and, turning the head of Flame, rode
some sixty yards over a shoulder of the rock to the
further edge of the mountain which looked towards
the north. Here he could see neither the camp,
nor Wulf, nor any living thing, but indeed was utterly
alone. Dismounting, and bidding the horse stand,
which it would do like a dog, he walked forward a
few steps to where there was a rock, and, kneeling
down, began to pray with all the strength of his pure,
warrior heart.
“O Lord,” he prayed, “Who once wast
man and a dweller in these mountains, and knowest
what is in man, hear me. I am afraid for all
the thousands who sleep round Nazareth; not for myself,
who care nothing for my life, but for all those, Thy
servants and my brethren. Yes, and for the Cross
upon which Thou didst hang, and for the faith itself
throughout the East. Oh! give me light! Oh!
let me hear and see, that I may warn them, unless my
fears are vain!”
Copyrights
The Brethren from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
