CHAPTER II.
THE CAMP.
“Truly a noble and a reverend veteran,” exclaimed the Jew to his companion when they had reached a little distance; “and a stout one too in his day, I doubt not. Marked you his erect and sinewy frame, his open countenance, his eye, round, full and fearless? It would be strange if our venerable host had not wielded a trenchant toledo with Louis at Damietta and Mansoora.”
“And it would be stranger still,” replied his companion, “if the same toledo, and the ambition to wield it under the deceitful suggestions and urgings that goaded men to assume the cross in those days, were not the cause of those ruined walls and that premature decadence of fortune which has brought the old man to what he is. Not the love of Christ nor yet zeal for the honor of his sepulcher has dictated those furious paroxysms of insanity that have blinded the world since the first one perhaps honestly preached by the Hermit. Through their deadly influence nobles have been pauperized and cities enslaved. Through them magistrates have been abolished and monasteries substituted for them. The widows and orphans of zealots who fell beneath famine, disease and the sword at Antioch and Dory-
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