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CHAPTER XI.
THL VOYAGE.

T was the Saturday before Pentecost, in the year
1249, when the fleet of King Louis and the
armed pilgrims, consisting of no fewer than eighteen
hundred vessels, great and small, issued gallantly
from the port of Limisso, and steered towards
Kgypt.

At first nothing could have been more gay and
pleasant than the voyage of the Crusaders. It
seemed as if the whole sea, so far as the eye could
reach, was covered with cloth and with banners of
bright colours. Everything appeared promising.
The voyage, however, was not destined to prove
_ prosperous. Suddenly the wind, which had been
favourable, changed, and blew violently from the
coast of Egypt. Great confusion was the conse-
quence; and, though the Genoese mariners exerted
all their skill, the fleet was utterly dispersed.
Indeed, when King Louis, having put back, reached
Limisso, he found, to his horror, that not more than
two-thirds of the armed pilgrims remained in his
company. Concluding that his companions had
been drowned, the saintly monarch was grieved