——————“how faint and feebly dim the fame that could accrue to him who cheered the band, and waved the sword, a traitor in a turbaned horde.”—siege of corinth.
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 replace129 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 form130 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 his131 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, ever132 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, had133 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 unenlightened134 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—
“in shadowed livery of the burnished sun,”
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,135 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 night136 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—
“the dark and hideous close, even to intolerable woes!”
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 dignitaries137 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 imperceptible138 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,139 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 had140 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,141 than the boasted prowess of c?ur 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 cannot—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 unrivalled142 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!
“sigh, nor word, nor struggling breath, heralded his way to death: ere his very thought could pray, unanealed he passed away, without a hope from mercy’s aid— to the last, a renegade!”
