CHAP. HI.]

ST. JOHN OF JERUSALEM.

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each of them took it, and inflicted it on herselfunsparingly, and being without succour, every oneof them bled to death; and better, since they es-caped what they most dreaded from some inhumanugly brute.’ Indeed they could not be objects ofanything but horror . 1 I now understood what I justhad heard, a Saracen cursing most blasphemously attheir not having waited to satisfy his lust beforethey died. And he spoke of the martyrs, as if theyhad done him an injury, and round from behindthe corner of the house came stretched out whatseemed a hairy brawny arm, and a large foul hand;and in a twinkling there was no longer that ancienthag, but I heard plunderers in an infidel tongue.And her shrieks were soon drowned by loudershrieks in the quarter towards which I was going.

‘‘ But I must get on. I am in too great a hurryto answer many questions. Quickly! What areyours? The way is frightful, but not of length.On! On!

“ How describe the harbour whose shipping stooda little out, else the rush of the crowd would havefoundered them at once? The boiling oil of theGreek fire, which once it catches hold of the out-side of a ship’s bottom, all is lost; its stink, and livid

1 AVadin : Annales Franciscorum., vi. 96.—Michaud: Hist., v.141. Note.