God Wills It! Part 54

The grounds were opening before him. The wood broke away to right and left. Richard saw the vague tracery of a wide-stretching palace,--colonnades, domes, pinnacles, all one dim maze in the starlight. For the first time he spoke to his guards.

"This is El Halebah? Tell me--why are our heads not struck off at once?"

"The grand prior wills otherwise," replied Harun, at his side.

"Are we to be put to death speedily, or long reserved?"

The Ismaelian became confidential.

"Cid, you talk as becomes a brave man. I should like to see you with your great sword in battle. Who am I, to know the desire of Iftikhar?

Yet I think this: if Christians may enter Paradise, ere midnight you will be sitting at banquet with the maids of pure musk."

"Then why this delay--this endless journey?"

Harun shook his head.

"I am only the grand prior's hands and feet. You will see."

Richard had faced death in battle twenty times and more, and never yet had felt a tremor. But riding to battle was not walking to meet the doom handed down by Iftikhar Eddauleh. The Norman feared not death, but life. Life through the ages of ages! Life shaped for eternal woe, eternal weal, by the deeds of a few earthly moments. h.e.l.l earned by that instant at Valmont! Heaven grasped for in the transfiguration at Clermont! And the issue mystery! mystery fathomless! Kept with G.o.d, the All-merciful; but behind all, ordering all, His awful righteousness! Richard knew as well as he knew anything that never in earthly body would he see that mist of stars again; he looked up into the violet-black dome, and trembled, for he knew he was drawing near the Almighty's throne.

They trod up the smooth gravel leading to the palace. The great valves of the portals opened noiselessly at some unseen bidding, then closed behind. A single flickering lamp went before, as they glided through long corridors, or under airy domes, where the wan light struggled up to colored vaulting,--gleamed, vanished. The feet touched soft rugs, and clicked on marbles. More doors opened. The Norman was led down stairways, along stone galleries, where the air was foul and chill.

Presently there were more lamps ahead, the ceiling was higher. Richard sniffed sweet fresh air. They were in a room of no great size; floor, walls, vaulting, of gray stone; a stone bench running along the walls; one or two niches, where perhaps in daytime a few rays struggled in.

Bronze lamps swung from chains, casting a wavering, ghostly light, as they puffed in the wind that crept through the scanty windows.

Others had preceded the captives into this chamber. Two figures advanced to greet them, as the three were halted,--the lofty Iftikhar, the dwarf Zeyneb. It was the latter that first spoke. To Musa he paid an obsequious salaam.

"The peace of Allah be yours, most n.o.ble Cid Musa," his greeting.

"And with you, the strife of Eblees!" replied the Andalusian, whose tongue at least was not pinioned.

"O valorous cavaliers!" protested Zeyneb, raising his hands. "What misfortune! Bow to the Omnipotent's will; what is doomed is doomed! It was doomed that I should behold you, son of Abdallah, creeping about Aleppo and El Halebah. Clever disguises,--not my Lord Iftikhar himself could have penetrated so admirable a conjurer. How adorably was Hakem toyed with! Wallah, I could scarce have bettered it myself!"

Musa repaid with one of his softest smiles.

"Were my wealth that of Ormuz, how could I repay your praise, O Kalif of the black-hearted jinns! I equal in guile Zeyneb, the crooked-backed toad of the gallant Iftikhar? Forbid it, Allah!"

Zeyneb laughed, not very easily. He wished Musa's tongue were as fast as his arms. The dwarf salaamed again.

"No more; I leave you to my Lord Iftikhar. Enough, you know it was I--I, Zeyneb the dwarf, the hunchback--who discovered the wiles of Musa the great cavalier; who led him and his two valiant Frankish comrades into my master's power. And remember, Cid Richard, the word on the wall at La Haye: 'Three times is not four. There is a dagger that may pierce armor of Andalus.'" A third salaam, then, "The mercy of Allah be with you; my lord will tell how many moments are left in which to rain curses on your poor slave Zeyneb."

Musa shrugged his shoulders, a gesture more eloquent than any he could make with his hands.

"And think not," he answered still sweetly, "my friends or I have breath or wind to waste cursing such as you. I thank your courtesy; we shall never meet again to requite it."

"Never?" queried Zeyneb, c.o.c.king his evil head. "Not on the Judgment Day when, says Al Koran, 'Allah shall gather all men together, and they shall recognize one another'?"

The Spaniard cut him short.

"Fly! Think not the All Just will so much as raise again your soul, even to plunge it into the h.e.l.l where wait garments of fire. Soul you have not, unless base vermin have. When they rise from the dead, so will you--no sooner!"

Zeyneb would have ventured reply, but Iftikhar pointed down a pa.s.sage.

The dwarf vanished instantly. Musa spat after him. "Purer air, now his stench is not by!" his comment.

Iftikhar, who had been silent, turned to his captives.

"My lords," said he, gravely, speaking Provencal, "we meet again at last, as I have long desired."

"You are wrong, my emir," interrupted Longsword. "At Dorylaeum I sought you long and vainly."

"And I think it well," continued the Egyptian, flushing, but not raising his voice, "since we shall not soon meet again, that I say a few things. This Duke G.o.dfrey, as your friend, shall fare as do you."

"Say it out, fledgling of Satan! Say it out," roared the Duke. "You will summon the headsman. By Our Lady of Antwerp, you will find those before Antioch who will not forget!"

"Gallantly done, my lord," taunted Richard. "At Palermo you boasted you loved to talk with a foe over two sword-blades; Syrian nard softens your courage and your arm."

Iftikhar lost control for a moment, and boasted wildly.

"_Ya_! You may well curse, for I have triumphed. As a lion you have lived; as a dog you shall die. The grudge is old; the vengeance sweetens with the years. Father, brother, mother, sister, I have taken from you. Yes, by the splendor of Allah, your bride also! Mary, Star of the Greeks, is mine! I will place your head before her. I will say, 'See, see, Richard, your lord, your husband.' For I have conquered--have conquered utterly!"

He paused to gather breath. Richard was silent, repeating to himself the proverb that "stillness angers most." The Egyptian recovered his control, and went on. "You, Richard Longsword," said he, "you, Cid Musa, and you, Duke G.o.dfrey, have come to Aleppo to steal away my prize. You fail. You shall, as Allah reigns, count out the price! I designed to start for Antioch to-morrow, intent on taking your heads to the Star of the Greeks. And I should not have failed. Kerbogha's host is but ten leagues from your Christian camp. You know nothing.

You will be struck as by a bolt from the clear sky. Knight and villain, you shall die far from Jerusalem,"--the Egyptian broke off in a laugh; for the Duke, steel against his own peril, had turned gray at this tale of danger to the army.

"Ah! my Lord G.o.dfrey," went on Iftikhar, "it matters little to you whether you end all at Aleppo or at Antioch. For on my faith as a cavalier, I swear there shall not one man of all your host escape.

Already Kerbogha advances beyond Afrin, and not a Christian dreams.

Your scouting parties are gallantly led, fair Franks!"

"Dear G.o.d," prayed Richard, "not for our sakes, but for the love of the army of Thy Son, suffer us even now to escape this Thine enemy!"

But Iftikhar continued: "I speak too long. Enough that I shall bring you this night before the tribunal of the Ismaelians, since the dagger is only for those whom our judgments cannot otherwise reach. You shall stand before our _Das_, that is to say the 'masters,' and our _Refiks_, that is the 'companions,' and it will be asked you if you sought the hurt of any Ismaelian. Make what defence you may. If the tribunal decide against you, you are delivered over by the court, and the world hears of you no more."

"Spare the mockery," thundered Richard, blazing forth at last. "Slay; but summon no judges who are sworn against all mercy!" Iftikhar's answer was a gesture toward the pa.s.sage. "Look!" and Richard leaped forward, bound as he was, so fiercely that he nigh flung down the three Ismaelians that held him. Two eunuchs were leading Mary Kurkuas into the chamber. Longsword had never known a moment like this. Then, if never before, he felt the pains of h.e.l.l. Angry G.o.d and angry devil might devise nothing worse. Mary was led before him. She was very white,--white dress, white hands, white face; and her eyes seemed to touch the bare gray room with brightness. They must have told her what awaited, else she had never been so calm and still and beautiful. So beautiful! Was Mary, Mother of G.o.d, sitting upon the Heavenly Throne, fairer than she? Blasphemy?--but the thought would come! And she did not moan, nor cry in agony. That was Mary's way,--Richard knew it,--that she was ready to turn Iftikhar's desires against himself, and make her last vision one of strength and of peace. With all the pain,--pain too deep for words,--under the influence of her eyes, he felt a sweet, holy spell creeping over him, and knew that the bitterness of death was past.

The two negroes led her until she stood beside Iftikhar. The Egyptian towered over her, splendid as Satan when robed as angel of light. The grand prior looked upon her face; and Richard knew he saw all the brightness of heaven therein. But a cloud pa.s.sed across the countenance of Iftikhar, as if in that moment of earthly triumph he felt there was something pa.s.sing betwixt his captive and his slave which not all the might of the "devoted" could win for his own. The Egyptian pointed from Mary to the Norman--his voice very proud.

"Look, Star of the Greeks, my vow is made good. Behold how Allah has favored Iftikhar Eddauleh. You indeed see Richard de St. Julien, your husband."

Mary was stately as a palm when she answered.

"And do you think, Cid, that you have led me hither to see me kneel at your feet, to hear me moan for mercy for these men? I know you over-well, Iftikhar Eddauleh. No human power can turn that heart of yours when once it is fixed. But G.o.d in His own time shall bow you utterly. I do not fear for Richard, for these his friends, for myself.

Life sometimes is nothing so precious that it is worth buying with too great a price. For these to whom G.o.d says 'Go,' the time will not seem long; and for me, to whom He says 'Stay,'--I shall be given strength to bear your power or that of other demon. But there is greeting in the end with naught to sunder. And to you,--to you,"--her eyes were not lamps now; they were fiery swords, piercing the Ismaelian through,--"G.o.d perhaps lengthens out many days of sin and glory, that for every instant on earth there may be an aeon hereafter of woe."

Iftikhar's face had turned to blackness. He raised his hand to smite.

Richard thought to see him fell the Greek to the stones; but his uplifted arm lowered, the spasm of madness pa.s.sed.

"Ask anything, anything but the lives of these men!" cried he, half pleading, to turn away the bitterness of her curse; "and as Allah lives I will not deny!"

"Take Richard Longsword, and then take all else. For G.o.d and His angels witness, you spread betwixt you and me a sea ten thousand years shall see unbridged!"

"I cannot! I cannot spare!" the words came from Iftikhar as a moan.