who, once impressed with the fact that there was work for him to do,
always did it to the best of his ability, but always with a keen
businesslike instinct of serving his own interests to the best
advantage. His father had impressed upon him the glory and rewards
which would come to him as leader of a victorious Crusade, and Nicholas
had responded to the call.

Now defeat had come instead, and he, the leader of the army, must bear
the brunt of the disgrace which would weigh heavily upon his shoulders
as long as his life lasted,--of that he felt sure. His comrades were as
competent to press on, or to journey homeward without him as under his
leadership. So he argued with himself and even as he argued, yielded to
a great temptation, and like Esau, sold his honour for a mess of
pottage.

A nobleman of Genoa, who was rich and powerful, and who saw in the lad
a resemblance to his long lost son sought Nicholas secretly, and
offered tempting prospects of a home and such advantages as the lad had
never dreamed of having in all his simple life, if he would abandon his
leadership and forsake his army, and Nicholas yielded to temptation.
With careful strategy he slid away from that little group of
disheartened followers, feverishly discussing what was best to do, and
all that flock who had trusted him so fully, mourned for him, and
mourning, trusted still, accounting him as one whom the Lord God of
Hosts had for some wise reason taken from them.

And even while they were mourning for him as for one dead, Nicholas in
new garments, more rich and showy than any he had ever worn before, was
being shown the wonders of his new home, where servants stood ready to
do his bidding, where every article of furnishing was a miracle of
fairy fashioning, where cultured voices spoke in gentle tones, and
where, oh, rapture far beyond all else, in the near-by stable there
stood a prancing steed that was to be his own. Truly a worthy Crusade
leader, he--Nicholas, the German lad!

Without a leader now, and without discipline or regulations, the
discouraged, disorganised band whom he had deserted, bravely started on
again, and reached Pisa, where they had far kinder treatment than in
Genoa, and from which place two shiploads of them sailed for the Holy
Land, but which we have no record that they ever reached. Those who did
not embark, broke up into various small bands and straggling groups,
travelling still southward, and at last reached Rome whe