Jerusalem, the City of Herod and SaladinBesant, Walter
History
Jerusalem, the City of Herod and Saladin
Besant, Walter
Jerusalem -- Description and travel; Jerusalem -- History
The peasant went away, and presently returned with all his
family—though, curiously enough, Foulcher says nothing at all about
his wife. Perhaps she was left behind, like Creusa. The count mounts
the ass, takes the child in his arms, and they start. On the road
the child began to cry, and “to torment the count with its wailing.”
He did not know how to appease it; “for Jocelyn had never learned
the art of soothing infants by caresses;” he began at first to think
of throwing away the baby, or of leaving it by the wayside, and so
getting rid of a travelling companion who might bring them all to
grief; but “perceiving that this project did not please the peasant,
and fearing to afflict him,” he continued, with the greatest
consideration, to endure “this new trouble,” till they arrived at
his castle at Turbessel, where there was great rejoicing. Can there
be a quainter figure than this of the count mounted on the ass,
carrying the squalling baby, and divided between rage at its screams
and gratitude to the peasant, his deliverer?
Meantime, the king was not prospering. Balak, in a rage that one of
his enemies had escaped him, hastened himself to the castle of
Khortbert with so large an army as to deprive Baldwin of any hope of
success. The fort was built on a chalk hill easy to cut into. Balak
sent sappers, who made excavations under the principal tower, and
then filling the cavern with wood, he set fire to it. When the wood
was consumed the chalk was softened and the tower came down with a
crash. Then Baldwin, against his will, surrendered unconditionally.
Life was granted to him, to Galeran, and to the king’s nephew. But
the poor faithful Armenians, the cause of Jocelyn’s escape and the
massacre of the garrison, were treated with the most cruel
inhumanity. All were murdered, most by tortures of the most horrid
description, of which sawing in halves and roasting alive, being
buried alive, and being set up naked as marks for children to fire
arrows at, are given as a few specimens. Jocelyn, who had been
hastily collecting an army, gave up the design of a rescue in
despair, and went to Jerusalem.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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