Part 79 (1/2)
For men were past hoping, fearing, suffering, now. In the sweet delirium their lives went out without a pang, though their bodies were flaming. And the last sight of the dying was the great crucifix and the Christ thereon, emblem of sacrifice before which lesser sacrifice was counted nothing. Not a Christian engine was working; the most were fast turning to ashes. But the tower, while it blazed, toiled forward.
The burning gra.s.s at Antioch had been nothing beside this valley of death; but the wall was becoming very near. For the thousandth time Richard was straining at his lever, when G.o.dfrey came to him.
”All is lost, De St. Julien!” came the hoa.r.s.e whisper.
”Lost? And why lost, my lord?” said Richard, with a dreadful calmness.
”Hist! Look on the ground before; it slopes downward to the moat. The engineers have blundered. When the tower is tilted its crest will be below the battlement; we cannot mount upon the wall.”
Richard stared upward through the smoke.
”We can beat down the battlement; it is yielding.”
”Are you St. George?” cried the Duke; ”every mangonel burns.”
Longsword pointed to the left. ”All burning save one!” his answer.
There was one mangonel so close under the walls that when all its crew were shot dead no others had ventured to man it.
”As Christ died,” came from G.o.dfrey, ”put that at the foot of the walls; find a breach in ten _credos_ or the fire triumphs.”
The men of St. Julien followed their seigneur. At last they knew they should fulfil their vow. The garrison, when it saw them, turned on their company all manner of fire and death. But the Auvergners who lived never counted their dead. By main force they tugged the mangonel up beside the _beffroi_, trampled out the flame for an instant. A flying stone s.h.i.+vered Longsword's s.h.i.+eld; Herbert thrust his own on Richard's arm, a plain s.h.i.+eld with only the red cross of the Crusade.
De Carnac fell while they set the rock of half a mule's weight in place; their seigneur pressed up the huge counterpoise; drew the rope.
The long arm swept creaking into the air; every war-cry died while the huge missile sped. The rock smote the battlement where the first attacks had weakened it. The upper face of the curtain wall crumbled inward. Out of the wreck a murk of dust was rising. For fifty feet the battlement had been beaten down far lower than was the summit of the tower.
”Forward again! For the love of Christ! Forward!” G.o.dfrey's voice; and it swelled into the sound of ocean waves as ten thousand throats reechoed it. The Moslems were uplifting a howl of wild despair. Did they fight men or sheytans, whose home was flame? But Richard saw the champion of the gilded mail still on the ramparts. The tower was now springing toward the wall as if a spirit of life had entered, so many were the eager hands. The infidel fires were spent. The Christian bowmen were shooting so pitilessly, not an Egyptian catapult was working. Up the dizzy ladder on the rear face of the tower Longsword clambered in spite of armor. The drawbridge at the crest the stones had long since dashed to flinders; what matter? For Heaven suffered two long beams from one of the defenders' engines to fall outward. The Crusaders caught them, laid them side by side,--a bridge with width of half an ell,--a dizzy height below, but beyond, Jerusalem!
Men tell that it was the end of the third hour of that Friday afternoon,--at the very moment Jesus Christ cried, on the Cross, ”It is finished!”--that the tower of G.o.dfrey was brought beside the walls; and the cavaliers, who had faced death so many times that day, gathered on its summit, to enter the Holy City. To right and left the walls had been swept bare of defenders by the bowmen. The cry pa.s.sed that a warrior in arms of white stood on the Mount of Olives, waving his s.h.i.+eld to urge on G.o.d's soldiers,--St. George, patron of holy victory. But though the other Moslems were fled away, there was one who remained steadfast. As Longsword gained the crest of the tower, he saw at the head of the narrow bridge that figure in gilded mail, with sword bared, helmet closed, twenty Christian bolts glancing off his panoply while he awaited the first to cross. And every Frankish voice cried, ”Iftikhar, emir of Jerusalem!”
Already upon the crest were standing the great Duke himself and Renard of Toul, Baldwin du Bourg, and many more. Yet for an instant none started--for it seemed tempting G.o.d to tread that bridge with fifty feet to the rock-hewn moat below, then meet the thrust of that cimeter. At G.o.dfrey's call the bowmen threw over the Moslem a cloud of arrows; but the gilded mail was proof. Still he stood,--then with the courtliest flourish to his foes, drew back three steps from the head of the perilous bridge, leaving a foothold for his challenger. Again he stood guard, and all the Christians shouted, ”A gallant knight, though infidel!” while the Duke bade the bowmen spare him; so notable a cavalier must die at a cavalier's own hands. There was an eager rush of those who would cross first, and smite the first blow,--Longsword eagerest of all. But a stranger knight leaped before him. The Frank sped over the dizzy path; stood upon the shattered wall. Once the swords met; but at the second blow the Christian dashed backward into the empty air--they heard the clang of his armor in the moat below.
”My prey!” pleaded Richard. But to his bitter wrath again, De Valmont had leaped before him, crossed the bridge, and all men kept silent while the Auvergner put forth all might and skill. Then of a sudden they saw the Moslem's thin blade lash under Louis's heavy weapon, smite full upon the side, and De Valmont went backward also. As he tumbled, a projecting beam broke his fall. In the moat they saw his stirrings, and cried out, ”Still alive!” Men sought him, exclaiming, ”Miracle!” But a great awe had come on the Christians. Who was this that could smite Sir Louis at ten pa.s.ses? G.o.dfrey thrust himself forward.
”Make way, fair knights! I, myself, will meet this paladin!” But Richard held him, as he touched the bridge.
”This is my own foe, my lord; your promise!”
G.o.dfrey turned, and Richard shook the lightnings out of Trenchefer, as he ran across the narrow way. With him went a great prayer half uttered by the whole host,--”_Dominus tec.u.m!_” as every man saw him standing with his feet on the brink of death, his face toward the infidel.
Richard showed naught but calmness. He trod the perilous path quickly as though he sought his bride. Trenchefer felt light as a rush to his strong right arm. The wall, the moat, the death below, he never saw; his eyes were only for that gilded mail--the mail of Iftikhar. This was the moment for which he had wept, had prayed! Behind that hated armor he saw forms never again to be met on earth--mother, father, sister, brother. He thought of the pains of his wife, and his own long sorrow. He was proud of the splendor, the valor, of the Moslem,--the greater glory in the victory. G.o.d had indeed willed that he should hew the last of the way to Jerusalem.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”THE INFIDEL GAVE WAY”]
Scarce had he taken stand on the shattered parapet before the infidel was paying him blow for blow. At the third fence Longsword knew he had met his match, for no mean cavalier with a cimeter's light blade could turn a downright stroke of Trenchefer. At the fourth Richard took one step back--another would have sent him beyond love and hate. But his rage rose in him; at the fifth the infidel gave way. A great stillness was around; the sun was sinking in unclouded brightness; the Egyptians, cowering behind their battlements, bated their prayers to Allah as they gazed; the Christians forgot to invoke Our Lady.
Richard, finding that a few smith's blows were profitless, fell to a slow and steady foil and fence; putting forth all his art, and every pa.s.s and feint that had never failed before. But he marvelled as he fought, seeing his subtlest strokes turned by that thin blade, which he deemed to have brushed away in a twinkling. Had he never before fenced with that cunning hand? The Moslem's s.h.i.+eld now shattered; Longsword swept his blade low and parried; in a flash the other pa.s.sed his cimeter from right hand to left, and the weapon dashed full upon the Norman's shoulder, ere he could raise Trenchefer. But the Valencia ”ring-mail”--Musa's gift--was yet proof. Ere the Moslem could strike twice, Richard recovered, cast away his own s.h.i.+eld, and pressed closer.
At a sweeping stroke of Trenchefer he slipped, and all the Franks moaned. But the infidel--gallant as his foe--did not press home the chance. Richard stood again, and struck as never before. ”Paladins both!” rang from the Christians. Now at last men knew Longsword fought for life, not for vengeance only. Again the Franks began to tremble.
”The Egyptians rally; new companies mount the walls!” thundered Duke G.o.dfrey; ”beat them back or all is lost!”