Unsupported by a single nation, he was at war with three; and after a brilliant reign of twenty-eight years unchecked by a single misfortune, he was about to die, leaving to his empire the legacy of a disastrous war, which was to end in defeat and humiliation.
But a strange thing had happened.

For a thousand years Europe had been trying to drive Mohammedanism out of the continent.

No sacrifice had been considered too great if it would help to rid Christendom of that great iniquity.

Now the Turkish Empire,--the spiritual heir and center of this old enemy,--no less vicious--no less an offense to the instincts of Christendom than before, was on the brink of extermination.

It would have been a surprise to Richard the lion-hearted, and to Louis IX.