And not a word comes from the Regent. Four several messengers Guy has sent, by as many different routes, in the hope that at least one of them may reach Acre, earnestly urging him to send instructions. We do not even know the condition of matters at Acre. The King and the Regent may themselves be prisoners. Oh, what is to be done?
Guy says that whatever may become of him, the kingdom must not be lost: and if ten days more pass without news of the Regent, he will parley with Saladin, and if possible conclude a truce on his own responsibility. I feel so afraid for Guy! I believe if Count Raymond could find a handle, he would destroy him without mercy. Guy himself seems to perceive that the responsibility he is ready to assume involves serious peril.
"Nevertheless, my Lady's inheritance must not be lost," he says.
I asked Lady Judith this morning if she were not dreadfully frightened of Saladin. They say he eats Christian children, and sometimes maidens, when the children run short.
"If I felt no alarm, I should scarcely be a woman, Helena," said she. "But I took my fear to the Lord, as King David did. 'What time I am afraid,' he says, 'I will trust in Thee.' And I had my answer last night."
"Oh!" said I. "What was it, if it please you, holy Mother?"
She lifted her head with a light in the grey eyes.
"'I am, I am thy Comforter. Know whom thou art, afraid of a dying man, and of a son of men who wither like grass: and thou forgettest God thy Maker, the Maker of the heaven and Foundation-Layer of the earth, and fearest ever, every day, the face of the fury of thine oppressor.... And now, where is the fury of thine oppressor?'"
"Did the good God speak to you in vision, holy Mother?"
"No, Helena. He spake to me as He does to thee--in His Word."
I thought it would have been a great deal more satisfactory if she had been told in vision.
"But how do you know, holy Mother," I ventured to say, "that words written in holy Scripture, ever so long ago, have something to do with you now?"
"God's Word is living, my child," she said; "it is not, like all other books, a dead book. His Word who is alive for evermore, endureth for ever. Moreover, there is a special promise that the Holy Spirit shall bring God's words to the remembrance of His servants, as they need. And when they come from Him, they come living and with power."