poisoned dagger of an
assassin in Nazareth, and when Eleanor (we are told) drew the poison
from the wound with her own lips. Yet Raymund Lull, who was a knight
so skilled that he could flash his sword and set his lance in rest
with any of his peers, had not joined that Crusade. His brave father
carried the scars of a dozen battles against the Moors. Yet, when the
last Crusade swept down the Mediterranean, Lull stood aside; for he
was himself planning a new Crusade of a kind unlike any that had gone
before.

He dreamed of a Crusade not to the Holy Land but to Africa, where the
Crescent of Mohammed ruled and where the Cross of Christ was never
seen save when an arrogant Moslem drew a cross in the sand of the
desert to spit upon it. It was the desire of Raymund Lull's life to
sail out into those perilous ports and to face the fierce Saracens who
thronged the cities. He longed for this as other knights panted to go
out to the Holy Land as Crusaders. He was rich enough to sail at any
time, for he was his own master. Why, then, did he not take one of the
swift craft that rocked in the bay, and sail?

It was because he had not yet forged a sharp enough weapon for his new
Crusade. His deep resolve was that at all costs he would "Be Prepared"
for every counter-stroke of the Saracen whose tongue was as swift and
sharp as his scimitar.

What powers do we think a man should have in order to convince
fanatical Moslems, who knew their own sacred book--the Koran--of the
truth of Christianity? Control of his own temper, courage, patience,
knowledge of the Moslem religion and of the Bible, suggest themselves.

III

_The Preparation of Temper_

So Lull turned his back on the beach and on Africa, and plunged under
the heavy shadows of the arched gateway through the city wall up the
narrow streets of Palma. A servant opened the heavy, studded door of
his father's mansion--the house where Lull himself was born.

He hastened in and, calling to his Saracen slave, strode to his own
room. The dark-faced Moor obediently came, bowed before his young
master, and laid out on the table manuscripts that were covered with
mysterious writing such as few people in Europe could read.

Lull was learning Arabic from this sullen Saracen slave. He was
studying the Koran--the Bible of the Mohammedans--so that he might be
able to strive with the Saracens on their own ground. For Lull knew
that he must be master of all the knowledge of the Moslem i