THE BRETHREN ***
Produced by JoAnn Rees otter@best.com
The Brethren
by H. Rider Haggard
Dedication
R.M.S. Mongolia, 12th May, 1904 Mayhap, Ella, here too distance lends its enchantment, and these gallant brethren would have quarrelled over Rosamund, or even had their long swords at each other's throat. Mayhap that Princess and heroine might have failed in the hour of her trial and never earned her saintly crown. Mayhap the good horse "Smoke" would have fallen on the Narrow Way, leaving false Lozelle a victor, and Masouda, the royal-hearted, would have offered up a strangely different sacrifice upon the altars of her passionate desire.
Still, let us hold otherwise, though we grow grey and know the world for what it is. Let us for a little time think as we thought while we were young; when faith knew no fears for anything and death had not knocked upon our doors; when you opened also to my childish eyes that gate of ivory and pearl which leads to the blessed kingdom of Romance.
At the least I am sure, and I believe that you, my sister, will agree with me, that, above and beyond its terrors and its pitfalls, Imagination has few finer qualities, and none, perhaps, more helpful to our hearts, than those which enable us for an hour to dream that men and women, their fortunes and their fate, are as we would fashion them.
H. Rider Haggard. To Mrs. Maddison Green.
Contents:
Author's Note Prologue Chapter One: By the Waters of Death Creek Chapter Two: Sir Andrew D'Arcy Chapter Three: The Knighting of the Brethren Chapter Four: The Letter of Saladin Chapter Five: The Wine Merchant Chapter Six: The Christmas Feast at Steeple Chapter Seven: The Banner of Saladin Chapter Eight: The Widow Masouda Chapter Nine: The Horses Flame and Smoke Chapter Ten: On Board the Galley Chapter Eleven: The City of Al-je-bal Chapter Twelve: The Lord of Death Chapter Thirteen: The Embassy Chapter Fourteen: The Combat on the Bridge Chapter Fifteen: The Flight to Emesa Chapter Sixteen: The Sultan Saladin Chapter Seventeen: The Brethren Depart from Damascus Chapter Eighteen: Wulf Pays for the Drugged Wine Chapter Nineteen: Before the Walls of Ascalon Chapter Twenty: The Luck of the Star of Hassan Chapter Twenty-One: What Befell Godwin Chapter Twenty-Two: At Jerusalem Chapter Twenty-Three: Saint Rosamund Chapter Twenty-Four: The Dregs of the Cup
"Two lovers by the maiden sate, Without a glance of jealous hate; The maid her lovers sat between, With open brow and equal mien;--It is a sight but rarely spied, Thanks to man's wrath and woman's pride."
Scott
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Standing a while ago upon the flower-clad plain above Tiberius, by the Lake of Galilee, the writer gazed at the double peaks of the Hill of Hattin. Here, or so tradition says, Christ preached the Sermon on the Mount--that perfect rule of gentleness and peace. Here, too--and this is certain--after nearly twelve centuries had gone by, Yusuf Salah-ed-din, whom we know as the Sultan Saladin, crushed the Christian power in Palestine in perhaps the most terrible battle which that land of blood has known. Thus the Mount of the Beatitudes became the Mount of Massacre.
Whilst musing on these strangely-contrasted scenes enacted in one place there arose in his mind a desire to weave, as best he might, a tale wherein any who are drawn to the romance of that pregnant and mysterious epoch, when men by thousands were glad to lay down their lives for visions and spiritual hopes, could find a picture, however faint and broken, of the long war between Cross and Crescent waged among the Syrian plains and deserts. Of Christian knights and ladies also, and their loves and sufferings in England and the East; of the fearful lord of the Assassins whom the Franks called Old Man of the Mountain, and his fortress city, Masyaf. Of the great-hearted, if at times cruel Saladin and his fierce Saracens; of the rout at Hattin itself, on whose rocky height the Holy Rood was set up as a standard and captured, to be seen no more by Christian eyes; and of the Iast surrender, whereby the Crusaders lost Jerusalem forever.
