A minute—­no result.  Another.

“Dog, hast thou deceived me and slain him?  If so, thou shalt not escape.”

“Patience,” said the Jew.

A heavy sigh escaped the sleeper.

“Thank God, he lives,” said the bishop.

“Where am I?  Have I slept long?”

“With friends—­all is well.

“Cover his face; now bear him out to the air.”

. . . . .

A barque was leaving the ancient port of Pevensey, bound for the east.  Two friends—­one in the attire of a bishop, and a youth who looked like a recent convalescent—­stood on the deck.

“Farewell to England—­dear England,” said the younger.

“Thou mayest revisit it after thou hast fulfilled thy desire to pray at thy Saviour’s tomb, and to tread the holy soil His sacred Feet have trodden; but it must be years hence.”

“My best prayers must be for thee.”

“Tut, tut, my child; thy adventures form an episode I love to think of.  See, Beachy Head recedes; anon thou shalt see the towers of Coutances Cathedral across the deep.”

CHAPTER XXV.  IN THE FOREST OF LEBANON.

Thirty years had passed away since the events recorded in our last chapter, and the mighty Conqueror himself had gone to render an account of his stewardship to the Judge of all men.

The thoughts and aspirations of all Christian people were now attracted to far different subjects from the woes or wrongs of the English nation.  The Crusades had begun.  Peter the Hermit had moved all Christendom by his fiery eloquence, and sent them to avenge the wrongs the pilgrims of the cross had sustained from Turkish hands, and to free the holy soil from the spawn of the false prophet.

Since the Caliph Omar received the capitulation of Jerusalem, in 637, and established therein the religion of Mahomed, no greater calamity had ever befallen Christendom than the conquest of Asia Minor, and subsequently Syria, by the Turks.

The latter event, which occurred about nine years after the Norman Conquest of England, transferred the government of Palestine, and the custody of the holy places, from a race which, although Mahometan, was yet tolerant, to a far fiercer and “anti-human” government The “unspeakable Turk” had appeared on the scene of European politics.

For, under the milder rule of the Fatimite Caliphs, who reigned over Jerusalem from A.D. 969 to 1076, a peculiar quarter of the holy city had been assigned to the Christians; a fair tribute secured them protection, and the Sepulchre of Christ, with the other scenes identified with the Passion, were left in their hands.  Greeks and Latins alike enjoyed freedom of worship, and crowds of pilgrims flocked from all the western nations.

Then appeared our Turks on the scene.  They first ravished Asia Minor from the weak grasp of the later Roman Empire, and established their capital and worship—­the abomination of desolation—­where the first great Christian council had drawn up the Nicene Creed, that is, at Nicaea in Bithynia.