While but a boy he had escaped from
the care of his foster mother, Queen Matilda, and hastened to join the
Crusaders. The review was closed by the array of foot soldiers led by
Raymond, Stephen of Amboise, Alcasto, and Camillus. The pageant having
passed by, Godfrey despatched a messenger to summon Sweno the Dane, who
with his forces was still tarrying in Greece, and at once set out for
Jerusalem.
Swift rumor had conveyed the tidings of his approach to Aladine, King of
Jerusalem, a merciless tyrant, who, enraged, immediately laid heavier
taxes upon the unfortunate Christians in his city. Ismeno, a sorcerer,
once a Christian, but now a pagan who practised all black arts, penetrated
to the presence of the king and advised him to steal from the temple of
the Christians an image of the Virgin and put it in his mosque, assuring
him that he would thus render his city impregnable. This was done, and
Ismeno wrought his spells about the image, but the next morning it had
disappeared. After a fruitless search for the image and the offender, the
angry king sentenced all the Franks to death. The beautiful maid
Sophronia, determined to save her people, assumed the guilt, and was
sentenced to be burned. As she stood chained to the stake, her lover,
Olindo, to whom she had ever been cold, saw her, and in agony at her
sacrifice, declared to the king that Sophronia had lied and that he was
the purloiner of the image.
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