Nine months they were delayed before the city of Antioch, from
October 1097 to June 1098, when the city was taken by storm.
Then they were besieged themselves in that city, by nearly half a
million of Turks, and though reduced to the shadow of their former
strength, they sallied forth and utterly defeated their besiegers,
whose camp fell into their hands. Nothing could stand before the
enthusiasm of the western warriors, who fancied they saw spectral
forms of saints and martyrs fighting by their side.
At length, all obstacles removed, in the month of May, in the last
year of the eleventh century, they entered the Holy Land.
On this sacred soil the action of our tale recommences.
. . . . .
It was a lovely evening in May, and the year was the last of the
eleventh century.
The sun had gone down about half an hour, but had left behind him a
flood of golden light in the west, glorious to behold--so calm, so
transparent was that heavenly after glow, wherein deep cerulean
blue was flecked with the brightest crimson or the ruddiest gold.
The moon had risen in the east, and was shining from a deep
dark-blue background, which conveyed the idea of immeasurable
space, with a brilliancy which she seldom or never attains in our
northern sky.
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