CHAPTER VI.

THE MARKET-PLACE OF MARHALA.

Luckily disentangled from the fury of the guests of the Duke of Aquitaine by the nocturnal attack of the Saracens, Fergan the Quarryman had profited by the confusion to escape from the Emir's palace with Joan and Colombaik. While the Crusaders were hurrying to the ramparts of the gate of Agra, the serf turned his steps with wife and child, far away from the spot of the battle. Before sunrise, quiet reigned again in Marhala. Descrying one of those numerous taverns, that generally sprang up after the capture of a city, and were set up in some Saracen house by the camp-followers of the army, Fergan stepped in. To the great astonishment of Joan, he pulled out of his belt a gold piece, which he exchanged with the tavern-keeper for silver coin, to pay for his lodging. Once more alone with his family, the quarryman could give a loose to his tender feelings and relate to them how, after being separated from them by the sand-spout, he found himself half buried under the sand, and losing consciousness. In the darkness of the night he was shaken out of his lethargy by a sharp scratch on his shoulder. It was a hyena, that, pawing up the sand under which he lay, prepared to devour him, taking him for dead, but instantly fled seeing him sit up. Thus, delivered from a double danger, the serf had wandered about during dark, amidst the mournful yelpings of the wild beasts at their quarry over the corpses that they dug up. At dawn he saw, already half devoured, the remains of Neroweg VI.

After vainly searching for Joan and his child, Fergan considered them lost forever, and followed the route marked out by the human bones. At the end of several hours' marching, he came across the corpse of some seigneur, to judge by the richness of his clothes, torn to shreds by the beasts of prey. Among the tatters was an embroidered purse full of gold. He appropriated it without scruple, and was soon joined by a troop of travelers bound for Marhala. He journeyed in their company. Upon his arrival in the city, and learning that several other travelers who escaped the disaster of the sand-spout had come in ahead of him, he inquired after a deformed woman with a child. A beggar, who had accidentally seen Joan and her son enter the palace of the Emir, gave him the information, and he was enabled to arrive in time to wrest them from the danger they were just threatened with.

After a recital of his adventures, and leaving his wife and Colombaik in the tavern, Fergan went out at sunrise to purchase some clothing at the market-place, where booty was constantly sold at auction. Fearing to be met by some of the guests of the Duke of Aquitaine, the serf had smeared soot mixed with grease over his face. Rendered thus unrecognizable, he entered the market-place. Instead, however, of finding the place occupied by traffickers in booty, he saw a large gang of men hastily engaged in the construction of a pyre under the overseership of several prelates. A cordon of soldiers, placed at a distance from the pyre, kept the inquisitive from drawing too near. Fergan had just elbowed himself to the front of the mob, when a deacon, clad in black, said aloud: "Are there among you any strong men who wish to earn two deniers, and help finish the pyre quickly? They shall be paid the moment the work is done."

"I shall help, if wanted," answered Fergan. Two deniers were worth earning. They would eke out his treasury.

"Come," said the priest, "you seem to be a lusty fellow. The faggots will weigh like straws on your broad shoulders." Five or six other wretches, having volunteered to join Fergan, the deacon took them to the center of the place, where, resting upon a large bundle of trunks of olive trees, palmettos and dried brushes, the pyre was being erected for the accomplishment of the miracle announced by Peter Barthelmy, the Marseilles priest and possessor of the Holy Lance. This Barthelmy derived a large revenue from his relic by exhibiting it for money to the veneration of the Crusaders. Other priests, jealous of the receipts pocketed by the Marseillan, had assiduously backbitten his lance. Fearing a decline of earnings, and wishing to furnish a proof of the virtue of his lance, and at the same time confound his detractors, he had promised a miracle. Fergan set to work with ardor to earn his two deniers. He soon perceived that a narrow path crossed the heap of kindling-wood, which, about thirty feet long and raised four or five feet on either side, sloped down towards the path that cut it in two. Thus, towards the middle and for a space about two yards wide, the pyre offered hardly any food to the fire. After a half hour's work, Fergan said to the deacon: "We shall make the heap even, and fill up the gap that crosses it, so that the pyre may burn everywhere."

"Not at all!" the deacon hastened to say. "Your work is done on this side. We must now set up the stake and adjust the spit."

Fergan, as well as his companions, curious to know the purpose of the stake and spit, followed the priest. A wagon hitched to mules, had just dumped several beams upon the place. One of these, about fifteen feet high, and furnished in some places with iron rings and chains, had at about its center a sort of support for the feet. Fergan's helpers followed the instructions of the deacon, and set up the stake at one of the corners of the pyre where the kindling wood was well heaped. Other workingmen placed not far away two iron X's, intended to support an iron bar about eight feet long and tapering into sharp points.

"Oh! oh! What a terrible looking spit!" said Fergan to the priest, placing the iron bar on the two X's with no little labor. "Are they going to roast an ox?" Instead of answering the serf, the deacon listened in the direction of one of the streets that ran into the place, and, hastily fumbling in his pockets, said to Fergan and the other men, while handing to each the promised wages: "Your work is done. You may now go. The procession is approaching."

Fergan and his assistants withdrew to the mob which the file of soldiers was holding back from the pyre. Church songs were heard, at first from a distance, but drawing ever nearer, and soon the religious procession issued into the market-place. Monks marched at the head, after them clergymen carrying crosses and banners, and then, in the midst of a group of high dignitaries of the Church, whose mitres and gold embroidered copes sparkled in the sun of the Orient, came the Marseilles priest, Peter Barthelmy, bare-footed and robed in a white shirt. He held up triumphantly in his hands the holy and miraculous lance. This contriver of miracles, of a countenance at once sanctimonious, artful and sly, preceded other prelates carrying banners. Azenor the Pale came next, clad in a long black robe, her hands bound behind and supported by two monks. She had been convicted of the abominable crime of being a Jewess. She was convicted of this enormity, not alone by the revelation that, in a paroxysm of jealousy, she had made to William IX., but also by the testimony of the parchment that she had handed to him in order to dispel his doubts. In that parchment, written in the Hebrew language and dating several years back, the father of Azenor urged his daughter to die faithful to the law of Israel. A few steps behind the victim, William IX., the Duke of Aquitaine, his hair in disorder and covered with ashes, dragged himself on his naked knees in abject penitence. Clad in a rough sack, his feet bare and dusty like his knees, and holding a crucifix in his two hands, the penitent cried out ever and anon in a lamenting voice, while smiting his chest with his fist: "_Mea culpa, mea culpa!_ Lord God, have mercy upon my soul! I have committed the sin of the flesh with an unclean Jewess, I am damned without your grace! Oh, Lord, _mea culpa! mea culpa!_" On foot and in splendid raiment, the legate of the Pope and the archbishop of Tyre, marched on either side of the Duke of Aquitaine, repeating from time to time in a voice loud enough to be heard by the penitent:

"My child in Christ, trust in the mercy of the Lord! Render yourself worthy of His clemency by your repentance!"

"Remain faithful to your vow of chastity, you who were given to debauchery!"

"Remain faithful to your vow of poverty, you who were given to prodigality and magnificence!"

"Remain faithful to your vow of humility, you who were proud and arrogant!"

"But that will not suffice! You must surrender to the Church your earthly riches--lands, domains, castles, slaves--to the end that the priests may implore the Eternal for the remission of your transgressions and your numerous sins!"

Behind these followed a few Saracens who had been captured at the late night surprise of Marhala. They were led, pinioned, by soldiers. The King of the Vagabonds, his seneschal the Bacon-cutter and several of the men of their band had been joined to this escort by order of Bohemond, Prince of Taranto, and chief of the army, who himself closed the procession, accompanied by a large number of crusading seigneurs, casque on head and lance in hand.

This funeral train marched around the market-place, surrounded by an ever-swelling crowd, and ranked itself before the pyre, where the stake and the spit were in readiness.

"The miracle of the lance!" cried the crowd, impatient to see Barthelmy cross a flaming pyre in his shirt and without burning--"the miracle of the lance!"

"Woe is me!" muttered William IX., redoubling the blows with which he was lacerating his breast. "Woe is me! I am so great a sinner that perhaps the Eternal will not deign to manifest His omnipotence by a prodigy before me!"

"Be comforted, my son!" answered the papal legate. "The Eternal will manifest Himself in order to confirm your faith, seeing that you have been touched by grace, and humble yourself before His Church."

"Yesterday, father, I was an unclean criminal, an infamous evildoer, a miserable blind man. To-day my eyes are open to the truth. I see the everlasting flames that await me. Have pity upon me!"

"Give up all your goods to the Church, remain poor as Job, the Church will then intercede for your salvation," replied the legate, issuing his orders to his deacon to set fire to the pyre.

Immediately, walking almost without danger over the length of the path that crossed the paling, hidden by the height of the flames kindled at the four sides of the pyre, Peter Barthelmy seemed in the eyes of the credulous multitude actually to traverse the lake of fire. The serf saw, across a thick cloud of smoke that helped to increase the illusion, Peter Barthelmy, looking as if he was wading through flames up to the hip, run rapidly across the full length of the pyre, from which he emerged again brandishing his lance. The crowd, blind and fanatic, clapped their hands and shouted: "A miracle! A miracle!" Shocked at the impudence of the friar, who so shamelessly imposed upon the credulity of those poor people, Fergan decided to administer to him a stinging lesson. Affecting to yield to religious enthusiasm, he cried out: "Peter Barthelmy is a saint, a great saint! Whoever can secure the smallest bit of his clothing, or of his blessed body, even if but one hair, will be delivered of all ills!" The mob received Fergan's suggestion with fanatic approval. The file of soldiers, that held the multitude far enough back from the pyre, was broken through, and the most maniacal of these fanatics rushed upon Peter Barthelmy at the moment when, leaving the pyre a few steps behind him, he was brandishing his lance. An incredible scene ensued thereupon, related by Baudry, archbishop of Dole, an eye-witness of the occurrence, as follows in his "History of the Capture of Jerusalem:"

"When Peter Barthelmy emerged from the pyre with his holy lance, the crowd rushed upon him and trampled him under foot, each wishing to touch him and carry off a piece of his shirt. He received several wounds in the legs. Bits of flesh were cut from his body. His ribs were knocked in. His spine was fractured. He would, in our opinion, have died on the spot, had not Raymond, seigneur of Pelet, an illustrious cavalier, quickly gathered a platoon of soldiers, thrown himself with them into the midst of the mob, and, at the risk of his own life, saved poor Peter Barthelmy."

After this rude lesson given the cheat, Fergan approached the group of soldiers that were transporting the contriver of miracles in a dying state to a neighboring house. "The accursed brutes! The savages!" murmured the Marseilles priest, gasping for breath: "Have you ever seen such bedeviled rascals! The idea of wishing to turn me into relics!"

"It is but a condign punishment for the besotted state of mind that, with infamous calculation, you plunge these wretched people in," said Fergan leaning over Barthelmy. The Marseillan turned around with a sudden start, but the serf had disappeared in the crowd, and passed to the other side of the pyre, now fully ablaze. At one of its corners was Azenor, chained to the stake. Her feet rested on the tablet which the flames began to lick. A few steps from the victim, on his knees among the priests and joining them in their mortuary songs, crouched the Duke of Aquitaine, from time to time crying amid sobs: "Lord! Cleanse me of my sins! May my repentance and the just punishment of this unclean Jewess earn grace for me!"

"Ah, William!" cried out the condemned woman with a voice still strong and penetrating, "I feel the heat of the flames. They are about to reduce my body to ashes. These flames are less consuming than those of jealousy. Yesterday, driven to extremity, I made certain of my vengeance. A few instants of suffering will rid me of life, and your credulous stupidity avenges me. Look at yourself now, brilliant Duke of Aquitaine, the sport of priests, your implacable enemies, and the dupe of those who laugh at your imbecile fears! If there is a hell we shall meet there."

"Silence, you infamous and unclean beast!" cried out the legate of the Pope, "the flames that envelop you are as nothing to the everlasting fires where you are to burn through all eternity. A curse upon your execrable race, that crucified the Saviour of the world!"

"A curse upon the Jews! Death to the Jews! Glory to God in heaven and to his priests on earth!" shouted the spectators.

Suddenly, heart-rending screams rose above the din. Azenor the Pale, writhed with pain under her iron fetters as the flames, reaching her limbs, set her robe and long hair on fire. Presently the stake at which she was chained caught fire under her feet, swayed in the air for an instant, tumbled over into the furnace, and disappeared there with the victim in the midst of a wild flare of flames. The Duke of Aquitaine then embraced the knees of the papal legate and appealed to him imploringly: "Oh, my father in Christ, I vow to relinquish all my goods to our holy Roman Catholic Apostolic Church! I vow to follow the Crusade barefooted in a sack! I vow to bury myself in the depths of a cloister upon my return to Gaul! I vow to die in the austerities of penance, to the end that I may obtain from God the remission of my sins and evil ways!"

"In the name of the All-Powerful, I take cognizance of your vows, William IX., Duke of Aquitaine!" responded the legate in a ringing and solemn voice. "Only the observance of these vows can render you worthy of a day of celestial mercy, thanks to the intercession of the Church!" And the Duke of Aquitaine, bent low at the feet of the legate, his forehead in the dust, repeated his protestations and lamentations, while the King of the Vagabonds, stepping out of the file of soldiers that surrounded the Saracen prisoners, and accompanied by his seneschal the Bacon-cutter, approached the legate, saying:

"Holy father in God, I have come with my seneschal and a few of my subjects for the purpose of spitting one of those Saracen miscreants over the fire. You have but to deliver the victim to me."

"That belongs to Bohemond, Prince of Taranto," the legate answered the King of the Vagabonds, pointing with his finger to a group of crusading seigneurs who had just witnessed the miracle of Peter Barthelmy and the death of Azenor the Pale. The Prince of Taranto approached Corentin and speaking in a low voice led him to the side where the iron spit lay placed on the iron X's. Then, drawing near the escort that surrounded the prisoners, the prince made a sign. The soldiers parted ranks, and five bound Saracens faced Bohemond and the other Crusaders. Two of these prisoners, a father and son, were particularly remarkable, one by his noble and calm face, framed in a long white beard, the other by the bold and juvenile beauty of his lineaments. The old man, wounded in the head and arm at the night attack, had torn a few pieces of his long mantle of white wool to bandage his and his son's wounds. Their superb scarfs of Tyrian wool, their silk caftans, embroidered with gold, although soiled with blood and dust, announced the rank of the chiefs. Thanks to an Armenian priest, who served as interpreter, they held the following discourse with the Prince of Taranto, who, addressing himself to the old man, said:

"Were you the chief of those infidel dogs who attempted to surprise the city of Marhala by night?"

"Yes, Nazarean; you and yours have carried war into our country. We defend ourselves against the invaders."

"By the cross on my sword! vile miscreant, dare you question the right of the soldiers of Christ to this land?"

"The same as I inherited my father's horse and black tent, Syria belongs to us, the children of those who conquered it from the Greeks. Our conquest was not pitiless like yours. When Abubeker Alwakel, the successor of the Prophet, sent Yzed-Ben-Sophian to conquer Syria, he said to him: 'You and your warriors shall behave like valiant men in battle, but kill neither old men, women nor children. Destroy neither fruit trees nor harvests. They are presents of Allah to man. If you meet with Christian hermits in the solitudes, serving God and laboring with their hands, do them no harm. As to the Greek priests, who, without setting nation against nation, sincerely honor God in the faith of Jesus, the son of Mary, we used be to them a protecting shield, because, without regarding Jesus as a God, we venerate him as a great, wise man, the founder of the Christian religion. But we abhor the doctrine that certain priests have drawn from the otherwise so pure doctrine of the son of Mary.'"

These words of the old emir, absolutely in keeping with the truth, and that contrasted so nobly with the cruelty of the soldiers of the cross, exasperated Bohemond. "I swear by Christ, the dead and resurrected God," he cried out, "you shall pay dearly for these sacrilegious words!"

"_Be faithful to your faith, even unto the peril of your life_, said the Prophet," the Saracen replied. "I am in your power, Nazarean. Your threats will not keep me from telling the truth. God is God!"

"The truth," added emir's son, "is that you Franks have invaded our country, ravaging our fields, massacring our wives and children, profanating the corpses!"

"Silence, my son!" resumed the emir in a grave voice. "Mahomet said it: _The strength of the just man is in the calmness of his reasoning and in the justice of his cause._" The young man held his peace, and his father proceeded, addressing the Prince of Taranto: "I told you the truth; I feel sorry for you if you are ignorant of, or deny it. Our people, separated from yours by the immensity of the seas and vast territories, could not harm your nation. We have respected the hermits and the Christian priests. Their monasteries rise in the midst of the fertile plains of Syria, their basilicas glisten in our cities beside our mosques. In the name of Abraham, the father of us all--Musselmen, Jews and Christians--we have welcomed like brothers your pilgrims, who came to Jerusalem to worship the sepulchre of Jesus, and his wise men. The Christians exercised their religion in peace, for Allah, the God of the Prophet, said through the mouth of Mahomet, the Prophet of God: _Injure no one on account of his religion_. But our mildness has emboldened your priests. They have incited the Christians against us; they have outraged our creed, pretending theirs alone is true and that Satan inspired our prayers. We long remained patient. A thousand times the stronger in numbers, we could have exterminated the Christians. We limited ourselves to imprisoning them. Those of your priests who outraged us and sowed discord in our country, were punished according to our laws. You then came by the thousands from beyond the seas, you invaded our country, and you have let loose upon us the most atrocious ills. Our priests then preached a holy war; we have defended ourselves, and we shall continue to do so. God protects the faithful!"

The calmness of the old emir exasperated the Crusaders. He would have been torn to pieces, together with his son and companions, but for the intervention of Bohemond, who with gesture and voice reined in the seigneurs. Addressing himself thereupon to the Saracen by means of the interpreter, he said: "You deserve death a hundred times, but I forgive you!"

"I shall report your generosity to my people."

"Be it so! But you shall also say to them: 'The Prince governor of the city and the seigneurs have to-day decided in council that all Saracens, henceforth captured, shall be killed and roasted, to serve as meat with their bodies to the seigneurs as well as to the army.'"[C]

The Prince of Taranto, while speaking and acting like a cannibal, was following the inspiration of an atrocious policy. He knew that the eating of human flesh inspired the Mahometans with extreme horror, seeing they professed for their dead a religious veneration. Accordingly, Bohemond expected to conjure up such fear among the Saracens that it would paralyze their resistance, and they would no longer fight, fearing to fall dead or alive in the hands of the soldiers of Christ, and be devoured by them.[D]

At the order of the Prince of Taranto, the King of the Vagabonds seized the emir's son, and, while the soldiers held the other prisoners back to compel them to witness the revolting spectacle, the young Saracen was slaughtered, disembowelled, spitted and broiled over the burning embers of the pyre that had just been the theatre of the miracle of Peter Barthelmy and of the death of Azenor the Jewess; and in the presence of the crusading seigneurs, of the legate of the Pope and of the clergy, the Saracen youth was devoured by the band of Corentin the Gibbet-cheater, assisted by the other wretches, whom a fury of fanatical self-glorification drove to join the anthropophagous feast. This done, the father of the victim and his companions were freed from their bonds and set at liberty, a liberty, however, that the old man did not profit from. He dropped dead on the spot with grief and horror. Another Saracen went crazy with horror; the other two fled distracted from the fated city.

The frightful scene was hardly over, when messengers from Godfrey of Boullion arrived, notifying Bohemond to depart with his troops without delay, and join under the walls of Jerusalem the main army of Godfrey, who had just begun the siege of the Holy City.

Immediately the trumphets were sounded in Marhala; the cohorts formed themselves; and the army of the Prince of Taranto leaving a garrison behind in the Saracen city, set out on the march for Jerusalem, singing that now well-known refrain of the Crusaders, which was re-echoed in chorus by the mob that followed in the wake of the army:

"Jerusalem! Jerusalem! City of marvels! Happiest among all cities! You are the object of the vows of the angels! You constitute their happiness! The wood of the cross is our standard. Let's follow that banner, that marches on before, guided by the Holy Ghost! God wills it! God wills it! God wills it!"