had got. In
the morning, when he had knelt in snow-white linen and crimson and steel
before the high altar and received back his sword from God, the message
had been whispered to his heart. In the June dawn when, barefoot, he was
given the pilgrim's staff and entered on his southern journey, he had
had a premonition of his goal. But now what had been dim, like a
shadow in a mirror, was as clear as the colours in a painted psaltery.
"Jerusalem, Jerusalem," he sighed, as his King was wont to sigh. For he
was crossing the ramparts of the secret city.

He tried to take the ring from his finger that he might bury it, for it
irked him that his father's jewel should fall to his enemies. But the
wound had swollen his left hand, and he could not move the ring.

He was looking westward, for that way lay the Holy Places, and likewise
Alix and Picardy. His minutes were few now, for he heard the bridles of
the guards, as they closed in to carry him to his last fight.... He had
with him a fragment of rye-cake and beside him on the ridge was a little
spring. In his helmet he filled a draught, and ate a morsel. For, by the
grace of the Church to the knight in extremity, he was now sealed of the
priesthood, and partook of the mystic body and blood of his Lord....

Somewhere far off there was a grass fire licking the hills, and the sun
was setting in fierce scarlet and gold. The hollow of the sky seemed
a vast chapel ablaze with lights, like the lifting of the Host at
Candlemas.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

The tale is not finished. For, as it chanced, one Maffeo of Venice,
a merchant who had strayed to the court of Cambaluc and found favour
there, was sent by Kublai the next year on a mission to Europe, and his
way lay through the camp of Houlagou. He was received with honour, and
shown the riches of the Tartar armies. Among other things he heard of a
Frankish knight who had fallen in battle with Houlagou's champions,
and won much honour, they said, having slain three. He was shown the
shrivelled arm of this knight, with a gold ring on the third finger.
Maffeo was a man of sentiment, and begged for and was given the poor
fragment, meaning to accord it burial in consecrated ground when he
should arrive in Europe. He travelled to Bussorah, whence he came by sea
to Venice. Now at Venice there presently arrived the Count of St. Pol
with a company of Frenchmen, bound on a mission to the Emperor. Maffeo,
of whom one may st