Excerpt from Mare Nostrum: Our Sea a Novel Saint John, who, united with the Templars, had aided King James in the conquest Of Valencia. Upon crossing the covered passageway leading from the street to the inner court, he was accustomed to salute the Virgin Of'the Conquest, an image Of rough stone in faded colors and dull gold, seated on a bench, brought thither by the knights of the military order. Some sour orange trees spread their branching verdure over the walls of the church, - a blackened, rough stone edifice perforated with long, narrow, window-like niches now closed with mud plaster. From the salient buttresses of its reinforcements jutted forth, in the highest parts, great fabled monsters of weather-beaten, crumbling stone. In its only nave was now left very little of this roman tic exterior. The baroque taste Of the seventeenth cen tury had hidden the Gothic arch under another semi circular one, besides covering the walls with a coat of whitewash. But the medieval reredos, the nobiliary coats Of arms, and the tombs of the Knights of Saint John with their Gothic inscriptions still survived the pro fane restoration, and that in itself was enough to keep up the notary's enthusiasm. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.