th the "unplumbed, salt estranging sea" lies Stephen, the
boy Prophet--who even while the tempest was hurling his army to death
on the open sea, proved the sincerity of his piety; for clinging to a
spar, while drifting to a certain doom, he led his little flock in song
and prayer, and even as wave after wave dashed over the deck, above the
roar of the tempest could his clear triumphant young voice be
heard--"In the name of Christ and His cross, be brave. We go to
victory--to victory!"

Hideous indeed were the sufferings of the brave youths in the other
ships, when they saw their comrades drifting to their death, and little
did they dream that they had escaped that terrible storm only to meet
still greater perils. Soon they found that they were victims of an
infamous treachery, that the merchants who had been so praised in
preparing vessels for their use, were simply slave-dealers who had
contracted (and probably for an enormous amount of money)--to sell
those unsuspecting children to the Mohammedans--the very nation whom
the youthful Crusaders had gone forth to conquer, to whom such a
consignment of fair young slaves would be of rare value.

Surrounded by vessels of the enemy, they were taken from the ships in
which they embarked, and despite their agony of fright and pleading,
were carried either to Brijeiah or to Alexandria by their captors,
where among the fairest scenes, and the most wonderful and tropical
beauty they had ever dreamed of, they were sold into hopeless slavery.
Not one of all that army of Stephen's ever saw Europe again, and the
Children's Crusade ended as all enterprises end, whether undertaken by
young or old, layman or priest, warrior or statesman, when conceived
and carried out in a spirit of rebellion and frenzy.

Nicholas and Stephen--boy leaders of the Children's Crusade, one of the
most pathetic and thrilling events in all history, one lived--one died.
Which, think you, had the right to wear the emblem of the Holy Cross?

PETER OF HAARLEM:

The Boy Who Saved His Country

It was an April day, and Haarlem, an old Dutch town near Amsterdam was
gay with tulips, for there in Haarlem are grown the most famous tulips
in all the world, as well as hyacinths, and if you had driven through
the country roads on that April day, you would have seen the meadows
and roadsides overspread with a brilliant carpet of the vari-coloured
flowers, while the air was full of the sweet perfume of the hyaci