“Sir Charleroy is unusually pious to-night; but alas, though I’ve been taught to say our church’s Litany, calling on ‘the Virgin most faithful,’ ‘Virgin most merciful,’ ‘Help of the Christian,’ ‘Lady of Victories,’ I can not use those phrases here. Where’s the help, the mercy, the victory now? The Litany, belongs to England!”
“We are in our present plight because we have won heaven’s neglect through having more vices than graces, probably.”
“Whatever the cause, the mocking disappointment is apparent. It is nigh thirteen hundred years since the Holy son and His mother began proclaiming and exemplifying the White Kingdom here. Now in all this land of theirs, we thirteen, fateful number, alone are left of those who openly own His cause. Yea, and the city where He grew in favor, these nature-blessed plains whose flowers gave Him picture sermons, are all filled with burrowing monsters eternally at war with Him and His.”
“Faith will rest until assured that the Promiser is dead, and that can never be, Sir Knight.”
“My faith staggers at the sights of Nazareth. Chief, look yonder.”
The knights all now called Sir Charleroy chief, when addressing him.
“At what?”
“The ruins!”
“Ah, all that’s left of our Crusader church. They say it was built on the very spot where Mary fell fainting, when she saw the Nazarenes in wrath dragging her son away to cast him down from the precipice to death. But He escaped, though the church since built did not!”
“True; therefore it seems to me that the hand on time’s dial turns backward. This city is filled with creatures having hearts as hard as the limestone walls of the cave-like houses they fittingly inhabit. If Christ and His Mother were again on earth as before, mercy’s ministers, the present inhabitants of Nazareth would surpass His ancient persecutors in the zeal with which they would drag not only Him but His mother to the cliffs.”
“Over the door of yon ruined church, some hand of faith carved the word ‘Victory!’ The word is there yet, and though the hand that carved it is dead, the faith which prompted it hath victory assured it.”
“ ‘Victory,’ in ruins! A meaningless boast, as it seems to me, Sir Charleroy. Such victory as ours; shadowy and very distant!”
At that moment one of the Templars, who had been secretly praying behind a cactus hedge, drew near and the Hospitaler addressed him:
“Brother, any token?”
“Praise Jehovah! yes, of peace.”
“How came it?”
“In my communings, God brought to my mind how the wondrous Deborah, not far from here, pushed the pusillanimous Barak from his refuge among the pistacas and oaks, from waverings to courage and to glorious victory over God’s foes.”
“A happy thought; ‘the stars on their course fought against Sisera!’ ”
“Barak was called the ‘thunderbolt,’ but Deborah was the ‘lightning.’ The lightning gave force to the bolt and God to the lightning.”
Sir Charleroy, catching the last sentence, joined in the debate:
“Gentlemen, there is another lesson on the brow of that history; it is, that women, having more trust, cleave closer to God in peril than do men. Men are in a panic when their devices fail; women have fewer devices to fail, hence are less easily confounded. For that reason God sent out our race in pairs.”
“Hermon’s breast holds the last ray of the setting sun,” remarked the Golden Cross.
“And the Transfiguration of Christ is recalled! I think some angel of God is holding the sunlight there for our instruction, now,” exclaimed the chief.
“Our instruction?” queried the Templar. “I do not discern its meaning; campaigning I fear has dulled my brain.”
“The Son of Mary, on yon mount, met Elijah, representative of the prophets, Moses, representative of the law; both called from the deathless land to proclaim the fulfillment of all prophecy and law through His coming passion.”
“And still I question how this applies to us?”
“A Knight of the Red Cross should easily discern that suffering unto death for truth’s sake is the way, all prophecy declares that a reign of law transforming things to spiritual splendor shall at last come to earth.”
“Ah, Sir Charleroy, the interpretation is entrancing, but why did the glory need to fade into night, and to be followed by Gethsemane and Calvary?”
“Life is but a series of temporary glimpses of the glory that shall be revealed. Night and cloud come and go, yet the sun never dies.”
“But, Sir Charleroy, was it not hard that the loving Immanuel should be forced to bide these pangs though ever pursuing true righteousness?”
“Yea, Templar, but the glory of the Transfiguration came to all that group while Jesus prayed; as the angel hastened to minister when Gethsemane was darkest. These things teach that heaven watches its own, with succor according to want; great light at hand to baffle great darkness and royal answers for anxious prayers!”
“You mean, Sir Charleroy, that we few, surrounded by a sea of enemies, in an inhospitable land, far from home, should despise each despairing thought?”
“Good Templar, I am certain of this, anyway: Suffering for the right has full reward, for after passion as Christ’s, so to His followers there comes the ascension.”
“Amen,” fervently ejaculated several surrounding knights, and Sir Charleroy felt the glow that he felt that time the English bishop blessed him.
As they thus communed, the sun had quietly sunk down into the far-off Mediterranean, flooding the west with light like molten gold. Doubtless one thought came to each at the sight; for all smiled sadly when one remarked: “The West is very beautiful to-night!” They thought with deep yearnings of home. But the darkness quickly drew over the scene and the song of the baleful nightingales began to start forth here and there from thickets which, in the darkness, appeared like plumes of mourning on acres of black velvet. One knight, for a while entranced by the grim, gloomy spectacle, shuddered; then looked up as if to say: “When will the moon rise? the darkness is oppressive!” Another tried to cheer his comrades by crying: “England’s songsters know us and come to sing us into hopefulness!”
“Men, to rest; you’ll need it.” It was Sir Charleroy who spoke. Responsibility made him motherly.
“Let us revel awhile in memories of better days,” replied the Templar.
“But listen; do you not hear afar off something like the moaning of the winds before a storm?”
“What of it? A storm could add little to our misery.”
“The sound you hear is the cry of jackal and wolf; our omens. Forget now all unnerving thoughts of home and steel yourselves to meet hard fortune. For a while rest. Rest is now our wisdom; night, our mother; for a time in safety she will swaddle us within her black garments. And then——”
“Even so, good Sir Charleroy, and I’m thinking this is her last visit to us. She has come, I guess, to lead us to the portals of eternal day.”
“When I say good-night to you, comrades, it will be with the expectation of next saying good-morning