It would then not be the least bitter part of a pilgrim's lot, if he was unrecognised and unwelcomed, or found, perhaps, his wife and children did not know him in his mendicant's garment, his face wan with hunger, privation, or from the heat of Eastern deserts, and the dampness of oriental dungeons, and he would have to trust to the memory of some faithful servant before the rightful lord could seat himself as master at his own board.

Among the marvellous and romantic anecdotes that the Crusades afford of unexpected returns, is one of three knights of Languedoc. They were brothers, and had been mourned for as dead, their friends believing that they had died in Palestine. One day they reappeared, bringing with them a lovely Syrian damsel and an image of the Virgin Mary. The tale they told was, that, cast into prison, they steadily refused to abjure their religion. The Saracen prince, whose captives they were, sent his lovely daughter to try if her charms might not succeed in softening hearts, indifferent, where faith was concerned, to threats of death. They told her in reply so much about Christianity that she was ready to aid them to escape. One of them had a little image of the Virgin concealed beneath his coat of mail ; and the legend goes, that when the Syrian maiden looked at it, she shed tears, and immediately became a Christian.