w he
was all aflame with the quixotry of the Crusader. He neither needed
nor sought wealth, nor was he concerned about death. His feet trod the
sacred soil of his faith, and up in the hills which rimmed the
seaward plain lay all the holiness of Galilee and Nazareth, the three
tabernacles built by St. Peter on the Mount of Transfiguration, the
stone whence Christ ascended into heaven, the hut at Bethlehem which
had been the Most High's cradle, the sanctuary of Jerusalem whose every
stone was precious. Presently his King would win it all back for God.
But for him was the sterner task--no clean blows in the mellay among
brethren, but a lone pilgrimage beyond the east wind to the cradle
of all marvels. The King had told him that he carried the hopes of
Christendom in his wallet; he knew that he bore within himself the
delirious expectation of a boy. Youth swelled his breast and steeled his
sinews and made a golden mist for his eyes. The new, the outlandish,
the undreamed-of!--Surely no one of the Seven Champions had had such
fortune! Scribes long after would write of the deeds of Aimery of
Beaumanoir, and minstrels would sing of him as they sang of Roland and
Tristan.

The Count of Jaffa, whose tower stood on the borders and who was
therefore rarely quit of strife, convoyed him a stage or two on his way.
It was a slender company: two Franciscans bearing the present of Louis
to the Khakan--a chapel-tent of scarlet cloth embroidered inside with
pictures of the Annunciation and the Passion; two sumpter mules with
baggage; Aimery's squire, a lad from the Boulonnais; and Aimery himself
mounted on a Barbary horse warranted to go far on little fodder. The
lord of Jaffa turned back when the snows of Lebanon were falling behind
on their right. He had nodded towards the mountains.

"There lives the Old Man and his Ishmaelites. Fear nothing, for his
fangs are drawn." And when Aimery asked the cause of the impotence of
the renowned Assassins, he was told--"That Khakan whom ye seek."

After that they made good speed to the city of Antioch, where not so
long before angels from heaven had appeared as knights in white armour
to do battle for the forlorn Crusaders. There they were welcomed by
the Prince and sent forward into Armenia, guided by the posts of the
Constable of that harassed kingdom. Everywhere the fame of the Tartars
had gone abroad, and with each mile they journeyed the tales became
stranger. Conquerers and warriors beyond