An hour had passed away since the conflict had ceased, and all was again peaceful and still.  The Christian dead were buried; the Moslems yet dotted the plain with prostrate corpses, whose unclosed and glassy eyes met the gazer in every direction.

Of these the Crusaders reckoned little, nor did the ghastly spectacle at all disturb their rest.  They sorrowed, indeed, for their own comrades; but when the parting prayers were breathed over their desert graves, they dismissed even them from their thoughts.

“They have given their lives in a noble cause, and the saints will take good care of them and make their beds in Paradise,” was the general sentiment.

And now the fire was rekindled, the wine skins passed round, the venison steaks again placed on the glowing embers, and they refreshed the inner man, with appetites sharpened by their desperate exertions in the late struggle.

Close by the side of the young knight sat their deliverer, whose followers mingled with the Englishmen around at one or other of the fires they had kindled.

“A health,” said the young knight—­“a health to our deliverer.  Had he not come so opportunely to our rescue, we were now supping in Paradise.

“What name shall I give to our honoured guest?”

“Men call me the Knight of the Holy Sepulchre, but it is too proud a title to be borne by mortal man.”

“Art thou he, then, whose fame has filled our ears, of whom minstrels sing, who with a band of stout followers defied the Moslem’s rage in these forest fastnesses, before even Peter preached the word of God?”

“Thou hast exaggerated my merits, but be they many, or as I would say few, I am he of whom they speak.”

“We are indeed honoured, thrice honoured, to be saved by thee; and these thy followers—­of what nation are they?”

“Of all countries which rejoice in the light of the True Faith, but they were Varangians {xxvii}, of the household guard of the Emperor of the East, whose service I left, to avenge the injuries of the pilgrim, and to clear him a path through these robber-infested wastes.”

“And may I ask the country which is honoured by thy birth, the nation which claims thee as her worthiest son?”

“I have no nation,” said the knight; sadly; “for these thirty years I have been an exile from home.”

The young knight asked no further questions, fearing to probe some secret wound.  He gave the toast, and all drank it with cheers, which made the solitude ring.

An indefinable interest centred in this knight:  rumour made him a noble of the later empire, the “Acolyth” or commander of that famous band of guards, whom the policy of the Caesar gathered around the tottering throne of Constantinople—­exiles from all nations, but especially from England—­driven by various fortunes from home.  Hereward—­and before him Norwegian Harold, who perished at Stamford Bridge—­had served in their ranks.