"God Wills It!" A Tale of the First Crusade.

Now what befell came so swiftly that in after days Richard could never tell it all. Sure it is, that had Trenchefer and Godfrey's sword and Musa's cimeter left sheath, there had...

November sixth; feast of St. Leonard, the warrior hermit; third hour of the morning. In the monastery church the monks were chanting "terce" to an empty nave. When the muezzins...

Rollo had dropped to a slower pace; at last had halted. Richard had set Mary down on a grassy hummock and gone back to his steed. The great beast was reeking with sweat, panting...

In the morning the Crusading Chiefs prepared to dig for the Holy Lance. Richard was touched when he left his men, to see how, despite their murmurings, the honest fellows tried...

In the city of Aleppo, close by the great Mosque Jami' el-Umawi, there stood a warehouse that was more than commonly busy on a certain spring morning. This warehouse was of two...

After the winter rains were past, and when all the birds were singing in the groves about El Halebah, Mary Kurkuas could see that Iftikhar Eddauleh was waxing restive in soul; b...

Near midnight--Morgiana had gone to her chamber early, but not to sleep. The throb of the music, the crash of the cymbals, the shoutings and laughter of the thousands,--all thes...

The host lay before Nicæa many a weary day before the starved and despairing garrison declared for Emperor Alexius and the Franks saw the Greek standards floating from the battl...

It was the next morning at El Halebah that Mary found Morgiana in her aviary. Here, in a broad chamber at the top of the palace, too high for any vulgar eye that chanced across...

Iftikhar Eddauleh rode over the dusty road from Turmanin to Aleppo with only thirty about him of the hundred riders that had followed him to Dorylæum. But Zeyneb was at hand, an...

Little heeded Richard Longsword the warnings of priest or mother, as with a good horse between his knees, a stout shield tossed over his back, and the white hawk blinking under...

News from over the sea,--from Italy! News that set old Sebastian declaiming, and wandering about all day with a mad fire in his eyes and a verse from Isaiah the prophet on his l...

When the Arabian's eyes lit upon Mary, Morgiana gave a little cry, ran to the Greek, and caught her in her arms. For a moment the two were so wrapt in the joy of meeting that al...

On Saturday, the fifth day of June, in the Year of Grace one thousand and ninety-eight, Kerbogha appeared before Antioch with a countless host. On the Saturday following a small...

Iftikhar had vanished. The Ismaelians on guard had retreated down the long gallery. Musa from his post declared that only a few sentries remained at the foot of the stairs. Morg...

"And how is it with the Star of the Greeks?" repeated Musa, while Richard Longsword's face grew gnarled as a mountain oak. At the Norman's silence, the Arab also became grave as...

The voice of Musa recalled the Norman to the things of earth. "_Citt_, protectress sent from Allah!" the Andalusian was crying, "do my ears fail? Is your voice strange? When hav...

How, as related in his letter, Musa had entered the camp of Kerbogha, made his guileful tale believed, and escaped safely with Mary Kurkuas to Tyre, we have no need to tell. Whe...

In the days that the Christians lay about Jerusalem, after the first assault had failed, Richard learned to know every ring on that gilded coat of armor which shielded the comma...

It was the twelfth day of the sacred month Ramadan, in the year of the flight of the Prophet four hundred and ninety,--according to the Christian reckoning in the month of Augus...

Forward the great host swept. And if the sight of the onrushing Turks had borne terror to the Christians that morning, what terror must have sped among the hordesmen that noon....

Now the full story of the battle of Antioch can be told only by that strong angel in whose book are treasured the records of the brave deeds done in faith. When that awful book...

"Poison," was his biting comment. "I did indeed suppose Iftikhar Eddauleh could at least trust to clean steel, even if he must place it in the claws of such vermin as this!"

As Richard Longsword ran across field and fallow that bright afternoon, had the warm sun turned to ink, he would scarce have known it. Sight he had not, nor hearing. He did not...

Richard and Mary made the toilsome journey across Lombardy and Dalmatia with trials enough to expiate many sins, before Count Raymond's host reached Constantinople. There also E...

Richard Longsword lay betwixt death and life for many a long day. Sebastian hardly left him for an hour, nor did Herbert; but it was Musa that saved him. Sebastian had a plainly...

The "Palace of the Diadem" had been the pride of some haughty Kelbite emir in the days when Palermo was a prime jewel in the Arabian crown; but the glory of its builder's family...

With the dawn that twenty-sixth day of November a great multitude was pouring through the gates of Clermont. A bleak wind was whistling from the north, mist banks hung heavy on...

It was early dawn in May, 1094. The glowing sun had just touched the eastern mountains with living fire; the green brakes and long stretches of half-tropical woodland were sprin...

Again high noon. The Syrian sun beat pitilessly, but Richard and his peers thought little of sun or star that Friday as they toiled on the levers and ropes of the great _beffroi...

Long before Assumption Day, the appointed time for setting forth, soon as the balmy spring winds blew, all France was marching. Not the great lords first,--for worldly wisdom wa...

Now at last they were drawing near to St. Julien, whither Richard sent advance messengers. And as he saw how, despite the rocks and the ragged landscape, fair meadow valleys beg...

To the surprise and joy of Sebastian and Herbert, Richard recovered from his wounds with miraculous rapidity. When the host marched again, many a voice cheered him. But those wh...

Night was falling. There was a gray mist creeping over the mountain; the ash trees and beeches loomed to spectral size; the sky was thick with dun cloud-banks. But De Carnac, as...

On the next day Richard rode again to Monreale, this time without Musa. But on the way, just as his horse brought him clear of the city, and he was speeding past the straggling...

There was mirth and dancing in the St. Julien castle when Longsword and his band returned. Seventy and more had they gone away, scarce fifty came back, some of the women howled...

Of the weary days passed by Richard Longsword while his wound was healing, of how Sebastian and Herbert bled him, poulticed him with poppy leaves, and physicked him with sage, t...

A notable feast it was the good Lady Margaret set before her unexpected guests; for if the warning was short, the eager hands were many, and the day before there had been rare h...

When the Christians sat down before Antioch in the autumn time, the delights of the country--the abundance of provisions and drink, the dark eyes of the sinful Syrian maids who...

Thus Richard returned to St. Julien, to the great joy and wonderment of Musa and Herbert, who had never expected to see him again after learning his quest. As the days of autumn...

In later days wise monks wrote that at the moment the great cry went up at Clermont, all the Christians of the world from cold Hibernia to parching Africa thrilled with joy inef...

Richard Longsword spent the winter in Palermo. There had come a letter oversea from his grandfather, old Baron Gaston of St. Julien in Auvergne, beseeching his daughter to send...

How the Holy City was sacked by the men of the West; how the infidels paid for unbelief and blasphemy with their own blood; how the blood in the porch of the mosque of Omar plas...

Under the dead craters of the Monts Dôme in the teeming Limagne basin lay Clermont, a sombre, lava-built town, with muddy lanes; and all around, the bright, cold, autumn-touched...

Richard's fury lasted more than one angry day, Musa's comforting counting for nothing. Sebastian's warnings--twanging the same old string--only made his rage the hotter. He wrot...

The yawning servants had carried the bishop from under the table, long before Baron William that night found the bottom of his last flagon. Yet early the next morning, none was...

Now when the south wind blew gently with the advancing spring, Richard set forth for Auvergne. With him went Sebastian, rejoiced to see "that very Christian country of France,"...

Wrong had been done Iftikhar, when the Franks boasted he had fled headlong with Kerbogha and his coward _atabegs_. Had all his peers in the Moslem host fought as he, there might...