The Brethren | Page 4

Twenty-Three: Saint Rosamund
* Chapter Twenty-Four: The Dregs of the Cup
"Two lovers by the maiden sate, Without a glance of jealous hate; The
maid her lovers sat between, With open brow and equal mien;-- It is a
sight but rarely spied, Thanks to man's wrath and woman's pride."
Scott
AUTHOR'S NOTE Standing a while ago upon the flower-clad plain

above Tiberius, by the Lake of Galilee, the writer gazed at the double
peaks of the Hill of Hattin. Here, or so tradition says, Christ preached
the Sermon on the Mount--that perfect rule of gentleness and peace.
Here, too-- and this is certain--after nearly twelve centuries had gone
by, Yusuf Salah-ed-din, whom we know as the Sultan Saladin, crushed
the Christian power in Palestine in perhaps the most terrible battle
which that land of blood has known. Thus the Mount of the Beatitudes
became the Mount of Massacre.
Whilst musing on these strangely-contrasted scenes enacted in one
place there arose in his mind a desire to weave, as best he might, a tale
wherein any who are drawn to the romance of that pregnant and
mysterious epoch, when men by thousands were glad to lay down their
lives for visions and spiritual hopes, could find a picture, however faint
and broken, of the long war between Cross and Crescent waged among
the Syrian plains and deserts. Of Christian knights and ladies also, and
their loves and sufferings in England and the East; of the fearful lord of
the Assassins whom the Franks called Old Man of the Mountain, and
his fortress city, Masyaf. Of the great-hearted, if at times cruel Saladin
and his fierce Saracens; of the rout at Hattin itself, on whose rocky
height the Holy Rood was set up as a standard and captured, to be seen
no more by Christian eyes; and of the Iast surrender, whereby the
Crusaders lost Jerusalem forever.
Of that desire this story is the fruit.

PROLOGUE

Salah-ed-din, Commander of the Faithful, the king Strong to Aid,
Sovereign of the East, sat at night in his palace at Damascus and
brooded on the wonderful ways of God, by Whom he had been lifted to
his high estate. He remembered how, when he was but small in the eyes
of men, Nour-ed-din, king of Syria, forced him to accompany his uncle,
Shirkuh, to Egypt, whither he went, "like one driven to his death," and
how, against his own will, there he rose to greatness. He thought of his

father, the wise Ayoub, and the brethren with whom he was brought up,
all of them dead now save one; and of his sisters, whom he had
cherished. Most of all did he think of her, Zobeide, who had been
stolen away by the knight whom she loved even to the loss of her own
soul--yes, by the English friend of his youth, his father's prisoner, Sir
Andrew D'Arcy, who, led astray by passion, had done him and his
house this grievous wrong. He had sworn, he remembered, that he
would bring her back even from England, and already had planned to
kill her husband and capture her when he learned her death. She had
left a child, or so his spies told him, who, if she still lived, must be a
woman now--his own niece, though half of noble English blood.
Then his mind wandered from this old, half-forgotten story to the woe
and blood in which his days were set, and to the last great struggle
between the followers of the prophets Jesus and Mahomet, that Jihad
[Holy War] for which he made ready--and he sighed. For he was a
merciful man, who loved not slaughter, although his fierce faith drove
him from war to war.
Salah-ed-din slept and dreamed of peace. In his dream a maiden stood
before him. Presently, when she lifted her veil, he saw that she was
beautiful, with features like his own, but fairer, and knew her surely for
the daughter of his sister who had fled with the English knight. Now he
wondered why she visited him thus, and in his vision prayed Allah to
make the matter clear. Then of a sudden he saw this same woman
standing before him on a Syrian plain, and on either side of her a
countless host of Saracens and Franks, of whom thousands and tens of
thousands were appointed to death. Lo! he, Salah-ed-din, charged at the
head of his squadrons, scimitar aloft, but she held up her hand and
stayed him.
"What do you hear, my niece?" he asked.
"I am come to save the lives of men through you," she answered;
"therefore was I born of your blood, and therefore I am sent to you. Put
up your sword, King, and spare them."
"Say, maiden, what ransom do