"Mother of God!" Mary was crying, all unstrung, "what has befallen us!"
But Nasr and Herbert had shot ahead. They could hear horses crashing through the thickets; other men plunged in after them on foot. Then a great shout, and forth they came, haling two very quaking and blackguardly-looking Egyptians, in the hands of one a strong bow.
"By the glory of Allah!" Nasr was swearing, "these men are of the Emir Iftikhar's guard. We shall have a tale to tell when next we fare to Palermo."
They dragged the wretches into the light. Nasr's identification and their guilt were beyond dispute. Their comrade had made his escape. But when Musa began to question them as to who prompted their deed, they had never a word, only cried out, "Have pity on us, O Sword of Grenada; like you, we are Moslems, and we sought an infidel's life!"
"By the beard of the Prophet!" protested the Spaniard, "good Moslems you are in truth. Well do you remember Al Koran, which saith, 'He that slayeth one soul shall be as if the blood of all mankind were upon him;'" and he added cynically, "Console yourselves, perchance you will be martyrs, and enter the crops of the green birds in Paradise."
"Mercy, mercy, gracious Cid!" howled the Egyptians.
"Away with them!" cried Richard, who saw that Mary was very pale and trembled on her horse. "At Cefalu we have for them a snug dungeon, thirty feet underground, with straw beds floating in water. There they can recollect, if Iftikhar Eddauleh put this archery in their heads!"
So Herbert and Nasr trotted the prisoners away, strapped to the saddles. That night, after Sebastian had said mass in memory of the merciful preservation of his "dear son," Baron William and Herbert taught the Egyptians how Normans were accustomed to eke out meagre memories. They began by sprinkling salt water on the prisoners' feet, and letting goats lick it; and then, as Sebastian aptly expressed in his Latin, sic per gradus ad ima tenditur, they at last called for red-hot irons. In this way, though the Egyptians were stupid and forgetful at first, in time they remembered how Iftikhar had sent them to Cefalu, to do what, except for the Valencia mail, they nearly accomplished. They had acted in a spirit of blind obedience, fully expecting to be captured and to suffer; and when they heard Baron William ordering the gallows, they only blinked with stolid Oriental eyes, for they saw that groanings availed nothing.
Very early the next day a messenger flew post haste to Palermo, with a formal demand from Baron William that the High Mufti, who judged all the Saracens of Sicily, should hear charges against the Emir Iftikhar. But the messenger was late. The third assassin had secured a fast horse, and outstripped him by half a day. Iftikhar was already out to sea, bound, it was said, for Damietta.
CHAPTER XI
HOW RICHARD FARED TO AUVERGNE
Now when the south wind blew gently with the advancing spring, Richard set forth for Auvergne. With him went Sebastian, rejoiced to see "that very Christian country of France," and Herbert his arch-counsellor, and Nasr with a score of tough Saracens, very fiends as they looked, Baron William's old retainers, who would have followed the devil with a stout heart so long as he led to hard blows and good plunder. Just before he started, Richard was admonished by his father not to rush into quarrel with Raoul, the brother of Louis, whose lands of Valmont lay close by St. Julien. "A rough, bearish fellow," William called him, who had won the name of the "Bull of Valmont" by his headlong courage. He had broiled with Louis, chased him from the fief, and now lived alone with his mother, the Lady Ide, and young brother Gilbert. Just now, report had it, he was at sword's points with the abbot of Our Lady of St. Julien, who claimed freedom from tolls upon the Valmont lands, and William warned his son against being used by the monk to fight his unchurchly quarrel. So Richard promised discretion, kissed his mother for the last time; and away he went on a stanch galleon of Amalfi headed for Marseilles, and making Palermo on her voyage from Alexandria.
A short voyage, too short almost for Richard and Mary, who found even the evenings grow enchanted, while they sat on the gilded poop watching the sun creep down into the deep; or listened to the tales of Theroulde, who set Mary a-laughing when he told of King Julius Cæsar, and how he built the walls of Constantinople, and wooed the "very discreet Fée," Morgue, who became his wife. But the joy was rarest to be alone upon the poop, with the soft breeze crooning in the rigging, the foam dancing from the beak and trailing behind its snowy pathway where trod the dying light.
"Ah," said Mary one evening, as the first star twinkled in the deep violet, "one year it is since I set eyes on you, my Richard; since you plucked me from the Berbers. In this year I have lost my father, and gained—you!" And there were both sadness and joy upon her face.
"A year!" quoth Richard, his eyes not upon the stars, but upon a coronal of brown hair. "How could I ever have lived without you? Since you have entered into me, my strength waxes twenty-fold. By St. Michael, I will seek a great adventure to prove it!"
"Do you think to give me joy by risking life at every cross-road to prove your love? Does a true lover think so meanly of his love, that he is willing to tear her heart by thrusting his precious self in peril?"
"No," protested he, taking her right hand in his own, then the other; and holding both captive in his right, while she laughed and struggled vainly to get free. "But what do you love in me? The only thing I have;—an arm that is very heavy. And shall I not use that gift of the saints? Are there not haughty tyrants with no fear of God in their hearts, who must be overthrown by a Christian cavalier? Is the world so good, so free from violence, and wickedness, and strife, that he who can wield a sword for Christ should let it rust in the scabbard? You would not have me always in your bower, listening to those Greek books which I called Churchmen's frippery, until you made them all music. Only yesterday I heard Sebastian grumble, 'St. Martin forbid that the princess play the Philistine woman to our Samson, and shear his locks; so that Holy Church fail of a noble champion!'"
"I will never play the Philistine woman to you, my Richard," answered Mary, lightly. Then as a sweet and sober light came into her eyes: "Oh, dear heart, I know well what you must be! It is true the world is very evil. We are young, and the light shines fair; but there is a day to dance, and a day, not to mourn, but to put by idle things. You will be a great man, Richard," with a proud, bright glance into his face; "men will dread you and your righteous anger against their wickedness; God will give you mighty deeds to do, great battles to win, great wrongs to right, and perhaps"—here with another glance—"they will think you grow hard and sombre, when it is only because you dare not turn back from your task, but must think of duty, not of childish things. But I will still be with you; and when you go away to the wars, as go you must, I will never weep till your banner is out of sight; and if I do weep, I will still say, as you said, 'It is no dreadful thing for a brave gentleman to die, if he dies with his face toward the foe, and his conscience clear.'"
"You will make me a very saint," said Richard, still holding fast her hands; "but it is by your prayers alone, dear saint, that I may dare have hope of heaven."
"No," replied the Greek, smiling, "you are not a saint. Oh, you will do very wrong, I know! But God and Our Lady understand that your heart is true and pure. It is our souls that go to heaven, not our tongues with their harsh words, nor our hands with their cruel blows. And when you are fiercest, and the tempting fiends tear you, and the sky seems very black, then I will kiss you—so—and you will recollect yourself, and be my own true cavalier, who wields his sword because the love of Christ is in his heart."
"But you will not always be with me," protested Richard. "When I am alone and sorely tempted—what then?"
"Then you must love me so much that my face will be ever before your eyes; and by this you will know when you strike for Christ, and when for worldly passion or glory."
"Ah!" cried Richard, "what have I done that God should send down one of His saints to sit by me, and speak to me, and dwell forever with me?"
"Forever!" said Mary, lugubriously; "we shall all be in heaven in a hundred years. How well that there is no marriage nor giving in marriage there, or some of those lovely saintesses might make eyes at so fine a warrior-angel as you; then I would wax jealous, and St. Peter, if he is the peacemaker,