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To me a pleasure it seems to put on hauberk, watch long nights, fast long days. Let us go strike upon them without more delay, that we may be able to govern this kingdom. The barons listen with an ill-will to this speech; Baldwin himself, on viewing the paynim host, is staggered at their numbers, and lets Sebile persuade him to send a messenger to his uncle.
"In the town of Saint-Omer," replied Sébile; "I am the daughter of Count Guinemer." Her father had lately come on a pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre, bringing her with him. A tempest had cast them on shore near the town of the giant, who had killed her father and kept her prisoner. "For more than seven years," she added, "I have not been to mass."
When the body is found and brought to Sebile, the water of her eyes falls down her chin. Ha, Guiteclin, said she, so gentle a man were you, liberal and free-spending, and of noble witness!
The drollest bit of sentimentality occurs, however, after the victory of the Franks and Guiteclins death, when Sebile is taken prisoner.
Sebile places the helmet on her husbands head and kisses him, never to see him more alive. The enemy are disarmed; three thousand of them are killed by the time Baldwin cuts his way to his uncle, to whom, as his liege lord, he makes complaint against the Saxons.
Baldwin was seated in his tower, looking out upon a league of hostile tents, complaining to Sebile, who comforts him as a worthy lady, bidding him trust in his uncles succour.
One Thursday morning their invasion is announced to the young king, who has but fifteen thousand men to oppose to them. Sebile embraces her husbands knees, and entreats him to send at once for help to his uncle; the barons whom he has called to counsel favour her advice. Barons, said Baldwin, I should fear the dishonour of it. It is too soon to seek and pray for succour.
With her husbands sanction, Sebile has her tent pitched on the bank, and establishes herself there with her ladies to act as decoys to the Franks; for fair ladys look makes men undertake folly. She is taken, however, in her own toils; falls in love with Baldwin one summers day on seeing him ride forth with hawk on wrist, and makes Helissend invite him over the river, under a very frank pledge that she will be his, for loss or gain. Their first meeting apparently takes place in the presence of Sebiles ladies, and so little mystery is attached to their love that, on Baldwins return to the Frank host after killing and despoiling of his armour a Saxon chief, he not only tells his adventure publicly to the Emperor, but the latter promises in a twelvemonth to have him crowned king of the country and to give him Sebile for wife, forbidding him, however, to cross the river any more a command which Baldwin hears without meaning to obey.
An abbey is founded on the field of battle, which Sebile enters; Dyalas, baptized as Guiteclin the convert, receives charge of the kingdom, and the Emperor returns, bearing with him the bodies of Baldwin and Berard; after which well was France in peace many a year and many a day; the Emperor found not any who should make him wroth. Fastrada: a Legend of Aix-la-Chapelle
If in heaven and on earth Mahomet has no power, even to pray Him who made Lazarus, I pray and request Him to have mercy on thee. The dead man is then placed in a great marble tomb; Sebile is christened, marries her lover, and is crowned with him as Queen of Saxony, Helissend being in like manner given to Berard. It is now that the truly tragical part of the poem commences.
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