326 THE HISTORY OF THE ORDER OF [book i.

Republicans, were unconscious of the past orfuture. A fellow-countryman of Maille’s cut thatTemplar’s name on a small rock that just peepsfrom the centre of the threshing-floor. 1

The chronicler says, the straw on that threshing-floor was all reduced to dust by Maille’s struggles;and so it would have been now at the same season;another Chalgrove, or Hougoumont, or rather itsquiet cottage. While the heroes, so soon to die, sleptat Nazareth, that very same night the seven thousandSaracens had passed Jordan, and instantly began toslaughter the peaceful peasantry, who, when theyopened their eyes, it was in another world; andat daybreak a voice echoed through the streets,“ The Turks, the Turks! to arms, 0 men ofNazareth! To arms for the true Nazarene!” 2And the grand masters and their little escort, ofabout five hundred, instantly marched to meettheir more than ten-fold adversaries. Their meet-ing was on the threshing-floor in question, frontingthe farmer’s, at foot of a little hill that shelters thevillage of El-Mazed, on the road from Nazarethto Cana in Galilee. 3 Considering their great in-

1 Bapt. Poujoulat: Asie Mineur, &c., ii. 396.

2 Coggleshale.—Michaud : Hist., ii. 266.

3 Bapt. Poujoulat: ii. 397.