Читать книгу The Book of Missionary Heroes - Basil Mathews - Страница 17

The Preparation of Temper

So Lull turned his back on the beach and on Africa, and plunged under the heavy shadows of the arched gateway through the city wall up the narrow streets of Palma. A servant opened the heavy, studded door of his father's mansion—the house where Lull himself was born.

He hastened in and, calling to his Saracen slave, strode to his own room. The dark-faced Moor obediently came, bowed before his young master, and laid out on the table manuscripts that were covered with mysterious writing such as few people in Europe could read.

Lull was learning Arabic from this sullen Saracen slave. He was studying the Koran—the Bible of the Mohammedans—so that he might be able to strive with the Saracens on their own ground. For Lull knew that he must be master of all the knowledge of the Moslem if he was to win his battles; just as a knight in the fighting Crusades must be swift and sure with his sword. And this is how Lull spoke of the Crusade on which he was to set out.

"I see many knights," he said, "going to the Holy Land beyond the seas and thinking that they can acquire it by force of arms; but in the end all are destroyed before they attain that which they think to have. Whence it seems to me that the conquest of the Holy Land ought not to be attempted except in the way in which Christ and His Apostles achieved it, namely, by love and prayers, and the pouring out of tears and blood."

Suddenly, as he and the Saracen slave argued together, the Moor blurted out passionately a horrible blasphemy against the name of Jesus. Lull's blood was up. He leapt to his feet, leaned forward, and caught the Moor a swinging blow on the face with his hand. In a fury the Saracen snatched a dagger from the folds of his robe and, leaping at Lull, drove it into his side. Raymund fell with a cry. Friends rushed in. The Saracen was seized and hurried away to a prison-cell, where he slew himself.

Lull, as he lay day after day waiting for his wound to heal and remembering his wild blow at the Saracen, realised that, although he had learned Arabic, he had not yet learned the first lesson of his own new way of Crusading—to be master of himself.