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BLOSS C.A.
Heroines of the Crusades
page 52
ADELA. 59
*
they could obtain a safe escort from the Emir at Antioch. Howbeit I only relate these things as they were told me in Jerusalem ; for a strange adventure separated me from my fellows. There are two fountains, Jor and Dan, which flow-ing down from the mountain, are collected into one, and form the Jordan. "When we passed them in our route, I was constrained to linger among the shepherds, who fed their flocks in the green pastures which there abound, and several devout persons tarried with me ; and on the mor-row, when we had taken our leave, we journeyed on, and straightway we came to the conflux of these streams,—and when we saw the Jordan, each man hasted to divest him-% self of his garments, that he might bathe in that stream, in which our blessed Lord was baptized. So occupied were we with the holy ceremony, that we had not observed a band of Arabs, who assailed us with a shower of stones and javelins, and separated us one from another. "What far-ther passed I know not, for a blow upon the temple felled me to the ground, and deprived me of sense.
When I unclosed my eyes, I thought myself among the fiends of hell ; and feeling for my crucifix, I found myself wrapped in many folds of fine cloth, in which I was firmly but gently bound. As my senses gradually returned, I began to note the things about me. The apartment seemed a long, dark cavern, whose limits I could not distinguish, lighted by a fire at the farther extremity, round which half clothed, swarthy figures were engaged in roasting pieces of flesh. Others of the same appearance were seated upon mats, with a cloth spread before them upon the ground, cutting the meat with long, crooked knives, or tearing it with their white pointed teeth, with savage voracity. Apart from the rest, seated upon an elevated cushion with his legs crossed, was a tall, strong-built man, with hair and beard white as snow, hanging over his shoulders, and down to his breast. He took no part with the revellers, but seemed to control by his look their wild, gibbering, talk, to the end that it might not disturb my slumbers ; for through exces-sive faintness, I seemed only to exist between sleeping and
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