God Wills It! Part 78

"Yours? Never, Star of the Greeks," protested Musa. "How was it you that led Iftikhar to his madness, and put frenzy in this woman's heart?"

But Mary wiped her eyes, and told all that had befallen. How she had gone into the streets; how Zeyneb had seen, had told Iftikhar, and sent him to his death. Before the Spaniard could reply, another strange step was on the threshold. It was that of a Nubian in scarlet surcoat, giant tall,--Ammar, third in command.

"In Allah's name," was his demand as he entered, and recoiled in his horror at the sight, "what means this rumor on the streets? Where is the Cid Iftikhar Eddauleh?"

"His body?--there!" answered the Andalusian, pointing downward. "Allah accounts with his soul."

"_Mashallah!_" and Ammar nigh drew his cimeter, "you have slain the emir, commandant of the city!"

"He rushed on ruin, good comrade. It was a private quarrel, and he is wrong. Ask of these guardsmen, is it so."

"It is so! _Wallah_, the emir was mad. It is so!" came voices from the doorway. Ammar's face was lowering when he demanded:--

"Yet how will you answer to Al Afdhal, the vizier?"

Musa drew himself to full height haughtily.

"Victory covers all pasts. Let me fling back the Christians and Al Afdhal will forget to question. If defeated"--Musa swept his hand in a wide gesture--"I will not be here to make reply. And now you, O Ammar, are my lieutenant, and I commandant this night of Jerusalem. Leave Iftikhar Eddauleh to Allah, and get you to the ramparts, for there is work in store." The clatter of a horseman in the streets cut him short; a breathless messenger was entering. "_Allah akhbar!_" gasped the courier, "I am from the Gate of St. Stephen. We have sallied forth to burn the Franks' siege towers. All the unbelieving jinns aid them.

The towers are repaired. We were driven back with loss. They attack at dawn."

"Fellow, fellow," began Musa, while Ammar dropped his jaw in surprise, "no tales, as you love your head! With my own eyes I saw those towers in ruins--they can never be fought again."

"In Allah's great name I do not lie," flew back the answer; "and the Christians have just flung the corpse of an Egyptian inside the city on a mangonel, with letters saying they send us the courier from Al Afdhal, who promises aid, but that they will be in Jerusalem ere he can set forth from Egypt."

The Spaniard cast about a lightning glance of high command; never was Iftikhar more lordly. "Then for El Islam we shall win glory or martyrdom by another sun. Lead to the walls, Cid Ammar, I follow instantly. Call all the city-folk to repair the breach. Hurry the Greek fire and oil caldrons from the citadel. We must each have a thousand hands betwixt now and morning. But on your lives say nothing of Iftikhar."

"Allah! Allah! Death to the Franks! Death!" roared the Soudanese, vanishing down the dark street as suddenly as they had come. But Ammar halted. "Cid," said he, gravely, "you are indeed commandant, but if the news flies out at this last grapple that Iftikhar lies dead, needless to tell how every sword-hand will weaken. The name of Iftikhar is worth a thousand in the death-grip. What is to be done?"

Musa had bent over the corpses, and was unbuckling the Egyptian's gilded armor.

"See," declared he, holding up the gem-set baldric, "I will put on the emir's mail. I have his height; none will miss his shoulders. With the casque drawn down, all but those in the secret will know nothing. I can again put on my own sombre armor, and appear elsewhere on the wall. The host will think they have both commanders. Ere the truth is known the city is saved."

"Allah! You have the craft of Solomon! So be it!"

"Breathe not a word of this to any. Bid the Soudanese keep silence.

Deny the rumor. Haste five spare mangonels over to the west wall; nine to the northern. Illumine the Franks with Greek fire, shoot arrows and stones incessantly. I will be on the Stork Tower at the northwest bastion without delay; do you look to the western city."

Ammar salaamed; was gone. Musa had finished stripping and putting on Iftikhar's armor. Save for the plumed helm that he held in his hand, who could say he was not the Egyptian?

"Take these corpses away," was his command to the eunuchs; "anoint and embalm them carefully. They must have honorable burial." Then he turned to Mary.

"Star of the Greeks, I must go upon the walls again. Hard indeed it is to leave you. But be comforted, Richard is well. I have talked with him. Our speech was all of you."

Mary was ready to weep once more, but held back the tears. Sweet and strong was her face when she answered:--

"Dear Musa, I know all that lies at stake this night and coming day. I can bear much. I am ready for whatever G.o.d may send. Once I called you my own cavalier at Palermo. Be such still. May the G.o.d who loves us all--Christian, Moslem--be with you and Richard Longsword."

She took the helmet from his arms. He knelt; with her own hands she fitted it after he had caught her hands, and kissed each one. Then he rose, clothed head to foot in the gilded mail.

"G.o.d go with you, my cavalier," said the Greek. "I may not say, 'send victory.' Farewell."

The stately plumes swept the pavement when the Spaniard salaamed.

"Fear nothing, lady," was all he replied; "remember the arm of the Most High is under all. His will over all. What is to us most ill, is to Him most good. Farewell."

He bowed again,--vanished from the doorway,--was swallowed up in the black night. Mary heard him mount; heard his horse's hoofs dim away in the distance. All the slow wind brought was a far-off murmur and rumble of many toilers on the walls. And Mary went up the staircase to seek her chamber and to pray.

CHAPTER XLVII

HOW TRENCHEFER WAS BROKEN

Again high noon. The Syrian sun beat pitilessly, but Richard and his peers thought little of sun or star that Friday as they toiled on the levers and ropes of the great _beffroi_, the siege tower of G.o.dfrey.

From daybreak they had been urging the ponderous fabric across rock and ravine, though its three tall stories of rough-hewn timber quaked and tottered on the rollers, though its facing of undressed hides had turned a hundred blazing arrows. Half the day they had wrought, while their crossbowmen vainly strove to quench the showers of missiles the Nubians rained upon them. Now, with the tower five hundred feet from its goal, lo! all the sally-ports and the broad gates of Herod and of St. Stephen were flung wide, and forth sallied the garrison,--ebon devils whose only whiteness was their teeth.

"At them, Christians! Forward, in Our Lady's name!" rang the cry of Duke G.o.dfrey. Then all around the tower had surged the battle, the infidels calling "Fire!" and the Christians struggling to save it; but in the end the Moslems were flung back, thinned and saddened by Frankish bolts and blades. Richard, in one moment of the succeeding calm, breathed a prayer of praise to Heaven, "_Gloria!_ _Gloria!_ At last! At last!" for he knew that the final hour was drawing nigh. And in the lead of the Nubians, and last of them to turn back, had he not seen that figure in gilded mail he had singled for his vengeance? At the thought of that vengeance even the vision of Mary grew dim, and the weight of his own sins was forgotten. Therefore of all the mad spirits, that day of glory and of wrath, none was madder than he, and none strained the pulleys harder.

Four hundred feet still to cover; four hundred leagues seemingly were traversed easier! For while the great tower lumbered on, groaning as a dragon at his death, the unbelievers set new engines on the walls and smote the Christians, even as G.o.d smote Sodom and Gomorrah. After the arrow hail came the catapult darts of two ells long, and stones of a man's own weight blew down as snow from the housetops. After the darts and the stones came things more terrible--gla.s.s vessels spitting fire; whereupon all the ground had turned to flame, and from the tower rose smoke and the crashing of timbers.

"Greek fire! h.e.l.l loosened! Save who can!" went up the wail of the Christians. But the great Bouillon, treading amid the flames as through a gentle rain, called above the din: "Christ is still with us!

Forward in His Name!" Then all courage returned. They brought vinegar and quenched the burning earth. The _beffroi_ shook off the fire and crept onward.

Three hundred feet now! The tower was swayed each instant by the shock of the Moslem enginery--darts, stones, fire; it withstood them all.

Around the gilded crucifix, fixed high above the summit, a thousand screeching arrows of the infidels had sped. It stood unscathed against the calm blue sky, as amid a realm of eternal peace; and the Christians, looking upon the image of their Lord, rejoiced and pressed forward.

Then again the sally-ports were opened; a second sortie more furious than the last. This time the champion in gilded mail laid about him among the Christians as if Satan's self were raging against G.o.d's saints. Richard pressed hard toward him to cross swords; but the strife held them asunder. Gaston of Bearn measured strength with the arch-infidel, and all the Franks groaned when they saw the Viscount fall. But his va.s.sals sprang over him, and locked their shields around him, making the Moslem champion give back. G.o.dfrey, who was cast with Richard for a moment, asked, "And is this not Iftikhar Eddauleh?" The answer was a nod of the head, but he heard behind the closed helm which Longsword, contrary to wont, was wearing, the words muttered, "Father, mother, sister, brother," and knew the Egyptian would need all his might that day.

So for a second time they fought, and for a second time, though two Moslems sallied forth to one of the Christians, the defence found Frankish steel too keen. Their chief strove to rally them, but in vain. Only his sweeping blows thrust back the hardy knights, who followed the unbelievers to the very drawbridge. The gates clanged in the face of the a.s.sault, and again from battlement and flanking tower pelted the storm of death. But the _beffroi_ still crept on.

Two hundred feet. Tower and wall were so close that the Christian bowmen on the summit could begin to shed a counter rain of missiles upon the infidels to quench that dashing from their enginery. Richard, toiling at the lever, saw a man-at-arms, who was working a catapult, fall, stricken through by a heavy bolt. The Egyptians raised a yell of triumph from the walls; the machine stood useless. Instantly out of the press around the tower rushed a priest--Sebastian! no armor save the holy armor of his white stole. The paynim shafts buzzed over him; to flies he would have paid greater heed. Richard saw the man of fasting and prayer lay the great arrow, draw home the huge bow, press the lever. There was a howl of rage on the walls,--the tall Ammar had fallen under the shaft. Richard ran to the priest's side.

"Back, father!" shouted he, "you rush on death!"

The priest left his toil to kneel beside a stricken bowman. None save the dying heard his voice; but he pointed to the glittering Christ on the sky-raised crucifix. There was a smile on the face when Sebastian laid the head of the dead gently down. The priest looked Richard calmly in the eye, though an arrow flew between them while he spoke.

"I must be about my Father's business," was all he said. Without more words he was back at the catapult, bending, levelling, shooting more than one infidel at every bolt. High above the clangor swelled his voice at each triumph. "Die, Canaanite! die, Amorite! Thou art my battle-axe and weapons of war! With thee will I break in pieces the nations! I will break in pieces captains and rulers!"

Richard knew he was in G.o.d's hands and left him. The Christian enginery was at last beginning to tell. Under their missiles he saw the battlements crumbling; dared he hope he saw the firm curtain-wall totter? Richard knew it was long past noon. When last had he touched food or drink or tasted sleep? But when he thought of the deeds to be done ere sunset, and saw that figure in gilded mail upon the walls, he dwelt no more on thirst or slumber.

One hundred feet; every finger's length bought with ten lives, but the price was not in vain. Men were beginning to count the moments before they could set foot on the rampart. Yet at this point a terrible rumor flew through the army. "The vinegar fails! We cannot master the fire!"

And as if bad news was borne by the fleeting winds, the Moslems instantly rained down more flame-pots, then still more, when nothing quenched them. In a twinkling the rock below the walls seemed burning, the rawhide facing of the tower scorched, a great cry of agony rose heavenward from the Franks.

"The devil fights against us!" howled many. But, as before, the word of G.o.dfrey was better than ten thousand fresh sword-hands. "Stand by!

Christ is greater than the devil!" he commanded. And Renard of Toul cried, "Forward, cavaliers; now is the time to die!" But G.o.dfrey answered him, "Now is the time in Christ's strength to live." When the news came that Raymond's and Tancred's attacks had failed, his only shout was, "Praised then be St. Michael, for to us is left the victory!"

Then it was the Franks bore witness to their faith; for even the Moslems trembled when they saw those terrible knights of the West standing amid the hail of darts, while the firm soil belched flame, the tower was wrapped in smoke,--beating the fires with their swords, casting on earth with their hands, wrestling at the levers, though the levers themselves were burning, and still forcing the _beffroi_ onward, onward!