anople was closed; that the ships
on the Black Sea had no sailors; and that there would be no food for the
people on the lower river.

And the King said, "Is the Duke dead, whom we saw at Bucharest; is the
Emperor dead, who met me at Constantinople?"

"No, your Grace," said the Hermit, "it pleases the Lord that in the
Black Death only those die who live in hovels and in towns. The Lord has
spared those who live in castles and in palaces."

"Then," said King Ladislaus, "I will live as my people live, and I will
die as my people die. The Lord Jesus had no pillow for his head, and no
house for his lodging; and as the least of his brethren fares so will I
fare, and as I fare so shall they."

So the King and the hundred braves pitched their tents on the high land
above the old town, around the new Cathedral, and the Queen and the
ladies of the court went with them. And day by day the King and the
Queen and the hundred braves and their hundred ladies went up and down
the filthy wynds and courts of the city, and they said to the poor
people there, "Come, live as we live, and die as we die."

And the people left the holes of pestilence and came and lived in the
open air of God.

And when the people saw that the King fared as they fared, the people
said, "We also will seek God as the King seeks Him, and will serve Him
as he serves Him."

And day by day they found others who had no homes fit for Christian men,
and brought them upon the high land and built all together their tents
and booths and tabernacles, open to the sun and light, and to the smile
and kiss and blessing of the fresh air of God. And there grew a new and
beautiful city there.

And so it was, that when the Black Death passed from the East to the
West, the Angel of Death left the city of Buda on one side, and the
people never saw the pestilence with their eyes. The Angel of Death
passed by them, and rested upon the cities of Bohemia.

V.

And King Ladislaus grew old. His helmet seemed to him more heavy. His
sleep seemed to him more coy. But he had little care, for he had a
loving wife, and he had healthy, noble sons and daughters, who loved
God, and who told the truth, and who were not afraid to die.

But one day, in his happy prosperity, there came to him a messenger
running, who said in the Council, "Your Grace, the Red Russians have
crossed the Red River of the north, and they are marching with their
wives and their children with their men of arm