ves. All the followers of the young English knight,
who had never been in Palestine before, looked forward to the
moment when the Holy City would first meet their gaze with an
intense expectation which even rendered them silent; only as they
pressed onward they sometimes broke out into the Crusading
hymn--familiar to them as some popular song to modern soldiers.

And this was the song:

"Coelestis urbs, Hierusalem
Beata pacis visio,"

It was hardly to be a vision of peace to them.

At length they stood on the slope of the same hill where the
Redeemer had wept over the guilty city; and--will my readers
believe me?--many of these men of strife--familiar with war and
bloodshed--did not restrain their tears of joy, as they forgot
their toils past, and dangers yet to come, ere they could enter the
holy walls.

This had been their longing expectation--this the goal of their
wearisome journey; they had oft doubted whether their eyes would
ever behold it--and now--It lay in all its wondrous beauty--beautiful
even then--before them; but, the banners of the false prophet floated
upon the Hill of Zion.

Across the valley of the Kedron rose the Mosque of Omar, on the
site of the Temple of Solomon; farther to the left lay the fatal
Valley of Hinnom, once defiled by the fires of Moloch; but on
neither of these sides lay the object of the greatest present
interest--the Christian Host.

Their attack was directed against the northern and western sides of
the city, where the approach was far more easy.

"There is the standard of Godfrey de Bouillon, on the first swell
of Mount Calvary," said the elder knight; "there on the left, where
the Jewish rabble erst stoned St. Stephen, Tancred and Robert of
Normandy conduct the attack; there, between the citadel and the
foot of Mount Zion, floats the banner of Raymond of Toulouse."

"And there, amidst the banners which surround the ducal lion of
Normandy, I see our own," cried young Edward. "Oh! let us charge
through that rabble and join them."

"Thine is a spirit I love to see; come, it shall be done--St.
George for merry England--Holy Sepulchre--en avant;" and the whole
galloped madly down the descent, first bringing the news of their
own arrival to a mixed crew of Saracens and Turks--an irregular
corps of observation which had got in their way.

They cleft their way to the very centre, as a wedge driven by a
powerful mallet cleaves its way to the heart of the tree. The
followe