“Some of us have living mothers who never cease to pray for us, nor will until their breath ceases. In this land, where God appeared through motherhood, I have a strong confidence that our mothers’ prayers, re-enforced by our appealing but unvoiced needs, will move the motherhood of God, if such I may call His tenderest lovings. I’ll trust to-night my mother’s prayers, reaching from England to Heaven and from thence to here, further than all the sympathy forgetful Europe will vouchsafe us. A nation cheered us to battle, and yet it will never seek for the fragments defeat has left; but the man never lived, no matter what his ill deserts, whom true mother love and eternal God love ever forgot.” After this long address, Sir Charleroy again felt the glow within and the approvings that he felt on the quay when the bishop’s hands were on his head. CHAPTER VI. THE FUGITIVES. “’Tis not in mortals to command success; But we’ll do better, Sempronius; we’ll deserve it.”—_Cato._ The fugitives slept, some in the obliviousness of complete fatigue and others restlessly, their minds perturbed by dreams of their impending perils. Dawn summoned all to renewed activity, but its coming was not greeted joyfully by the knights. “Sir Charleroy,” mournfully spoke a Hospitaler to the former, as they met at the outskirts of the camping place, “our comrade, the Knight of the Holy Sepulcher, made good his escape from this woeful country during the early morning, before dawn, as our comrades were sleeping!” “Why, impossible!” questioningly responded the chief. “Alas, ’twas rather impossible for him not to go!” “I’m in no humor for such petty jesting! See, his steed is there yet,” and Sir Charleroy turned on his heel impatiently as he spoke. “Pardon, companion, he that departed was borne away by the white charger with black wings!” “Dead?” “Mortals say ‘dead’ of such, but it were better to say he is free.” “_Peace to his soul_,” fervently spoke Sir Charleroy. “Ah, knight, thou canst not imagine the peacefulness of his going!” “But why were we not summoned? We might have consoled him at least; perhaps we might have healed. What was his malady?” “A poisoned arrow wounded him in the retreat from Acre. He did not realize his peril until the agonies of the end were wracking his body. Then he said, ‘Too late; it’s useless to attempt resistance of the inevitable.’” “Now this is pitiful—a humiliation of us all. Heavens, Hospitaler! there’s not a knight among us who would not have periled his life in effort in the dying man’s behalf.”