Nasr showed his sharp, white teeth.
"Yes, I have gained sight of the Spaniard. From the brother-in-law of the cousin of the wife of the steward of the Kadi, I learn that he is called Musa, and is of a great family among the Andalusian Moslems."
Richard chuckled at the circuit this bit of news had taken; then pressed:—
"But you have seen him? What is he like?"
"If my lord's slave"—Nasr was always respectful—"may speak,—the Spanish knight is a very noble cavalier. I saw him only once, yet my eye tells if a man has the port of a good swordsman and rider. Assuredly this one has, and his eyes are as keen and quick as a shooting star."
"Yet he keeps himself very retired about the country house?"
"True, Cid, yet this, they say, is because he is an exile in Sicily, and even here has fears for his life; so he remains quiet."
"Foh!" grunted Richard, "I am weary of quiet men and a quiet life. I will go back to Palermo, and leave my father to eat his dinners and doze over his barony. I have the old grudge with De Valmont to settle, and some high words with Iftikhar, captain of the Saracen guards, will breed into a very pretty quarrel if I am bent on using them. Better ten broils than this sleepy hawking and feasting!"
So they crossed the drawbridge, entered the outer walls of the bailey, with its squalid outbuildings, weather-beaten stables, the gray, bare donjon looming up above; and entering a tiny chapel, Richard and Herbert fell on their knees, while a priest—none other than Sebastian, who had stood at Hildebrand's side—chanted through the "Gloria" and "Preface" But when it came time for the sermon, the baron's two bears, caged in the bailey, drowned the pious prosings with an unholy roar as they fell on one another; and the good cleric cried, "Amen!" that all might run and drag them asunder.
There by the cage Richard greeted his father,—a mighty man even in his old age, though his face was hacked and scarred, and showed little of the handsome young cavalier who had stolen the heart of every maid in Rouen. But in his blue Norman eyes still burned the genial fire; his tread was heavy as a charger's, his great frame straight as a plummet; a stroke of his fist could fell a horse, and his flail-like sword was a rush in his fingers. He was smooth-shaven; round his neck strayed a few white locks, all his crown worn bare by the long rubbing of his helmet. One could have learned his rank by the ermine lining on his under-mantle, by the gold plates on his sword belt and samite scabbard; but in a "villain's" dress he would have been known as one of those lordly cavaliers who had carried the Norman name and fame from the Scottish Marches to Thessaly.
Father and son embraced almost in bear-fashion, each with a crushing hug. Then Richard must needs kiss his mother, the fair Lady Margaret of Auvergne, sweet and stately in her embroidered bleaunt, with golden circlet on her thick gray-gold hair; after her, Eleanor, a small maiden of sixteen, prim, demure, and very like her mother, with two golden braids that fell before her shoulders almost to her knees; and lastly, Stephen, a slight, dark lad, with a dreamy, contemplative face and an eye for books in place of arrow-heads, whom the family placed great hopes on: should he not be bishop, nay Pope, some bright day, if the saints favored?
"Hola, Richard!" cried the Baron, with a spade-like paw on his son's shoulder. "So you made test of the white falcon; does she take quarry?"
"A crane large enough to hold a dog at bay!"
"Praised be St. Maurice! Come, let us eat, and then to horse and away!"
So they feasted in the great hall, the plates and trenchers clattering, enough spiced wine to crack the heads of drinkers less hardened, the busy Norman varlets and Greek serving-maids buzzing to and fro like bees; for who could hawk with hunger under the girdle? A brief feast; and all had scattered right and left to make ready; but not for long.
Soon they were again in the court, the Baron, his sons, and Herbert, with Aimeri, the falconer, who had brought out his pride, as fine a half-dozen of goshawks and gerfalcons as might be found in all Sicily. The birds were being strapped fast to each glove, the grooms were leading out the tall palfreys, and the Baron stood with one hand on the pommel of his saddle, ready to dig his spurs and be away, when a mighty clangor arose from the bronze slab hanging by the gate.
"By St. Ouen," cried he, in a hot Norman oath, pausing in his spring, "what din is that? I have no mind to put off the hawking to bandy words with some wandering priest who would stop to swill my wine!"
But Herbert, the seneschal, had gone to the gate, and came back with his wicked eyes dancing in his head.
"Ho! My lord, there will be no hawking to-day!" he was bawling with all his lungs.
"Why not, rascal?" growled the Baron; yet he, too, began to sniff an adventure, like a practised war-horse.
"These people will make it clear to my lord."
And after the seneschal trooped three very dissimilar persons, who all broke out in a breath into howls and cries.
The first was a well-fed priest, but with a tattered cassock and a great red welt swelling upon his bare poll; the second, a dark-eyed Greek peasant of the country in a dress also much the worse for wear; and the third, a tall, gaunt old Moor, whose one-time spotless white kaftan and turban were dust-sprinkled and torn. They all cried and bellowed at once, but the priest got out the first coherent word.
"Rescue, noble Baron, rescue, for the love of Christ! My master, the Bishop of Messina, is fallen into the hands of the men of Belial, and I, even I, of all his following, am escaped to tell the tale. Rescue—"
And here the Greek broke in:—
"Oh! most august Frank, by St. Basil and St. Demetrius, I adjure you, save my sister, whom the pirates have carried away."
But the old Moor, with tears in his eyes, knelt and kissed the Baron's very feet.
"Oh! fountain of generosity, save my master, for the Berber raiders seek not his ransom, but his life. Rescue, O champion of the innocent!"
"By the splendor of God!" roared the Baron, with a great oath, "I make nothing of all this wind. What mean they, Herbert?" And the seneschal, who stood by all alert, replied curtly: "I gather, Moorish pirates have landed below the town toward Lascari to kill or kidnap the Spanish knight who dwells with Hajib the Kadi; and doubtless the Bishop of Messina and his company have fallen into their hands while passing along the road. It may be, my lord,"—and the sly fellow winked, as if the hint would be needed,—"that if we ride forth, we may nip them before they regain the ship. The Kadi's villa is far inland."
Baron William was no man of words when deeds were needed. In a trice he had clapped to his mouth the great olifant—the ivory horn that dangled at his baldric, and its notes rang out sharp and clear. Twice he wound a mighty blast; and almost before the last peal died away the castle was transformed. The Norman men-at-arms, dozing and dicing in the great hall, were tearing their shields from the wall, their lances from the cupboards and presses. Forth sounded that merriest of jingling, the clinking of good ring-steel hauberks as they dragged them on. In the stables feverish grooms girt fast the saddles on the stamping destrers—the huge war-horses. And up from other parts of the castle rose the boom of kettledrums, the clash and brattle of cymbals, as the Baron's Saracens, nigh half of his garrison, came racing into the bailey, clattering their brass-studded targets with their bow staves, and tossing their crooked cimeters. Richard and his father had rushed into the donjon, but were back quick as thought with their mail shirts jangling about them, and stout steel caps hiding all the face save the eyes. The good Baron was snorting and dancing for the fray as if it had been his first battle; or as if he were what the jongleurs said of Charlemagne, "two hundred years old, scarred by a hundred fields, yet the last to weary of the mêlée."
Good Lady Margaret stood by the gate as the troops rode out, after her son and husband had kissed her. Dear