God Wills It! Part 80

began Richard, while those terrible tears out of manliest grief would come.

"And the Star of the Greeks, what says she?" began Musa, again smiling. But he checked, when he saw the gust of sorrow sweeping across Mary's face. Then in a darker tone, he added, "No more of this, as you love me; no more, as I love you--love you both." His gaze was not on Richard, but on his wife. And the woman's heart first caught the strange stress of his voice and the light in his dimming eyes.

"Love _me_?" her words with a start.

Musa half raised his head from the pillows.

"Why shall I not say it now?" came the reply, almost proudly. "Loved you? I have ever loved you, truly as ever man loved, from the hour I saw your face, and heard your voice, when we plucked you from the Berbers." Then to Richard, "Dear brother, feel in my breast." And the Norman drew forth a soiled and folded bit of scarlet ribbon. "Do you remember, Star of the Greeks, the day you gave me this--when I held the lists against Iftikhar at Palermo? It has been at my lips each night since before I fell asleep. For I have loved you--have loved you--long." The words came very slowly now, for the flood of life was ebbing fast. But the Norman broke out:--

"Dear G.o.d, and all these years, my brother, you have not breathed this! I made mockery of your monkish state, and you smiled on, doing all to bring us two together and to give us joy!"

"a.s.suredly, can the outlaw kite make a nest for the lark? Had I loved her as little as Iftikhar loved her, I would have served brute pa.s.sion alone; have made my love only of her beauty and her kisses. But I knew while she knelt to your Christ and I to my Allah, we could never love soul with soul. Therefore my joy was this, to see her grow more beautiful as your bride, brother that you are, though not in blood."

"And was it so easy to do all this that I never dreamed it? that I marvelled to myself, 'Why is Musa so devoted, yet so true to Richard, my husband?'" asked Mary, with quivering lips. The breath of the Spaniard was coming still more slowly, but he answered, smiling: "After I had you utterly in my power--after the parting at Antioch--I swore a great oath I would never, save when dying, confess I saw you as other than a sister while Richard lived. It was hard; I was tempted; often the power of Eblees and his jinns was strong. But I fought them away with Allah's might. I have mastered, I have kept my vow. She is yours again, my brother, your own pure wife."

"Holy Mother," cried Mary, in her pain, "had I known this three days since, how would G.o.d have tortured me! G.o.d knows, while I never had an untrue thought touching Richard,"--and she looked fairly upon her husband,--"yet, Christian or Moslem, had Musa said the word, how would my breast have been torn!"

"Yes, and no shame," the Norman was interrupting, "for what I marvel at is this,--how you and Musa could look upon each other's face one day, and yet keep love for me."

But Musa whispered: "Leave the secret to Allah, Most High. I am near the ending now. You of the West have conquered. You have indeed wrung victory from very doom, your vow is cleared. The next Genoese ship bears you homeward to St. Julien, to the castle and the mountains of fair Auvergne. You will not forget, under that sweet French sky, the Spaniard, whose body lies beneath the dust of that Jerusalem he died to save, though all in vain?"

"Till they chant my death ma.s.s--never!" whispered Richard; but Mary made no reply. "It is a long way from _El Kuds_," Musa's pallid lips ran on, "to the orange groves and shining vegas, by the Guadalquiver and the Darro. But the pathway to the throne of Allah can be trodden while an arrow flies. Do not believe the priests, my brother, nor the imams of Islam, who say, 'only Christian,' 'only Moslem,' can meet before the Most High's face. Whether your Christ were Son of the Eternal or earth-sprung prophet, I know not. If to be true Christian is to wear the pure heart of Mary de St. Julien, then in truth the son of Mary the Virgin was the son of the All-Merciful. But this is hid.

We shall meet--you, and you, and I--in some blessed spot where the word is 'love,' not 'war.'" His breath failed him; Mary took his head upon her lap and stroked his temples with her soft, white hands.

Richard did not speak. Presently the Spaniard spoke again, a whisper, as of the far retreating wind:--

"Yes, I have been faithful to my love,--my brother,--my promise."

Mary glanced toward Richard, and he nodded gently. She bent over Musa and kissed him twice upon the lips. A smile broke upon the Spaniard's face. There came a faint sigh and a folding of the hands, as if to rest. Mary raised her head.

"He is not here," she whispered; and Richard answered softly, "Sweet wife, that was the fairest deed of all your life."

Just as the dawn was glowing, Richard stood before his tent on Olivet, and at his side Mary de St. Julien, his wife. It was very still, peaceful as a summer Sabbath of La Haye in far Provence. They clasped hands as they listened to a distant chant and singing. The priests were raising the matin hymn from the rock of Sion, where infidel muezzins had called on the single Allah for so many sinful years. They saw the east change from crimson to red fire, the redness brighten to golden flame; then all the ridge of Moab glowed in light, as on that morning when the host first stood before Jerusalem. The last mists crept from the hills--thin blue clouds that faded away in the burning azure. And last of all the sun mounted upward slowly, his glory trailing far, as though reluctant for his daily race. They saw coming from the city a company of priests, white-stoled, and bearing in their midst a bier, Sebastian going to that rest which shall know waking only at G.o.d's last trumpet.

"Let us pray," said Mary, gently, "for the souls of all the brave men and true who have died. Let us pray for the soul of Musa."

So they knelt, while the chant of the priests drew ever nearer. When they rose, the disk of fire had leaped above the topmost peak, and was touching each dome, each battlement, of the Holy City with living light. They saw the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Rock of Calvary.

The slow breeze crept through the scattered olive trees that crowned the Mount of the Agony. It was silent,--for a moment the priests had ceased chanting, and the sun went on his upward way, shedding over Mary's face an aureole as of gold. Richard put his arm about his wife, and looked deep into her eyes. And in those eyes he saw a strength, a love, a sweetness, not there that first hour they sped madness through his frame, when he curbed in Rollo with half-boyish might.

"Mary," said he, softly, in his Norman French, "my own true lady wife, it is five years since we first looked on each other--long years. But there are many left, please G.o.d. Will you go back to France with me, that by your aid and prayers I may prove a just lord to the lands of St. Julien?"

"I will go to the earth's ends with you, dear lord and husband," said she; and she also spoke in French. Then she pressed him closer. "Ah, sweet life, the night is sped; the sun fast rises. All the past is gone--Musa, Sebastian, Iftikhar, Morgiana,--and we--we only--are left to each other. I will forget I was born a Greek. I will speak your own sweet French, and be your loving wife; and we shall grow old together, ever loving one another, and the dear G.o.d more. And Musa--" but Richard had his word:--

"We will bear his name upon our hearts; and if so be I am suffered to stand before the throne of light, there will my brother be also. For on the earth there did not tread a soul more loved by G.o.d"--he hesitated--"and the Lord Christ, than he."

Then he kissed Mary once more, holding her head back in his strong arms, that the brightness might transfigure all her beauty. The procession of priests was very near, its leader, Raymond of Agiles.

The two knelt once more, that they might receive the good priests'

blessing and proffer new prayers for the sainted dead. And while they knelt, the company burst forth into singing, until the rock of Olivet gave back the sound:--

"Laud and honor to the Father!

Laud and honor to the Son!

Laud and honor to the Spirit!

Ever Three and ever One; Con-substantial, co-eternal, While unending ages run!"

A FRIEND OF CAESAR

A TALE OF THE FALL OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC

By WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS

12mo. Cloth. $1.50

"As a story ... there can be no question of its success ... while the beautiful love of Cornelia and Drusus lies at the sound sweet heart of the story, to say so is to give a most meagre idea of the large sustained interest of the whole.... There are many incidents so vivid, so brilliant, that they fix themselves in the memory."--NANCY HUSTON BANKS in _The Bookman_.

"Full of beautiful pictures and n.o.ble characters."

--_The Public Ledger_, Phila.

"Mr. Davis has done his work with a seriousness and dignity that indicate remarkable maturity of mind and of purpose. The plot of his story is stirring, as a portrayal of the times when Julius Caesar was rising into power could hardly fail to make it; but the characters have not been allowed to degenerate into mere puppets for carrying on the vigorous action. The author's conception of well-known historical characters is extremely interesting. It is no less delightful than surprising to be given a glimpse of the good side of the many-sided Cleopatra. The greatest praise that is due to Mr. Davis, however, is for his skilful management of the historical setting of his book. He is evidently at home in the times of which he writes. Every detail is characteristic, yet his story is not forced to yield place to dissertations upon Roman history and antiquities. He has succeeded in a remarkable degree in making that ancient world live, and in bringing it into close, vital relations with our own times."--Smith College Monthly.