God Wills It! Part 74

And she turned from the gate, thankful, yet fearful. What had befallen Richard and Musa that day of blood? The mult.i.tude surged backward, carrying her toward the inner city. In the rude press the veil was swept from her face. She knew that soldiers were pointing at her, and pa.s.sing the word "Look--a houri!" But she heeded little, only forced her way up the narrow street to regain the house. The throng made s.p.a.ce for her, for they knew she was an emir's lady, and many improper deeds were forgiven on a day like this. She reached the friendly portal; reentered the harem. The cowering maids and eunuchs stared at her dishevelled hair and dress, but hardly knew that she had been gone. Mary returned to her post on the housetop, and from the shouting in the street below learned that the Christian attack on the walls had been entirely repulsed, but that Iftikhar had lost many men in the sally. Just after sunset came a cavalryman with a note scribbled on a bit of dirty vellum.

"Musa to the ever adorable Star of the Greeks. Allah has kept Richard Longsword safe through battle. I also am well. I think the Christian machines so wrecked by our Greek fire, no a.s.saults will take place for many days. I will come to you before midnight. Farewell."

A brief letter, but it made the dying light on the western clouds very golden to Mary Kurkuas. So Richard lived, and Musa also. What thoughtfulness of the Spaniard to imagine her fears and send rea.s.surance! The buzzing streets grew calmer. She heard the muezzins calling the evening "_maghreb_ prayer" over the city. The eunuchs had so far awakened from their terror as to be able to bring her a few sweet cakes and some spiced wine. The Greek felt little weariness, despite her sleepless night. She would await Musa, hear from him the story of the battle, and how he knew Richard was well. With a quieting heart she left the roof balcony, ordered a lamp in her harem chamber, opened the book-closet and began to unroll her Pindar. She was just losing herself in the rhythm and splendor of a "Nemean" when a eunuch interrupted with his salaam.

"A woman to see the _Citt_ Mary,--who will not be denied." Before Mary could answer, the curtain had been thrust aside, and she saw in the dim glint of the lamp the face of Morgiana!

CHAPTER XLV

HOW RICHARD HAD SPEECH WITH MUSA

In the days that the Christians lay about Jerusalem, after the first a.s.sault had failed, Richard learned to know every ring on that gilded coat of armor which s.h.i.+elded the commandant of Jerusalem. Iftikhar had borne a charmed life those four and twenty days of the siege; a thousand bolts had left him unscathed; his voice and example had been better than five hundred bowmen at a point of peril. Along with Iftikhar, Richard noted a second mailed figure upon the walls, more slender than the emir, nimble in his sombre black mail as a greyhound; and his presence also fired the Egyptians to fight like demons.

Longsword bore about in his heart two resolves, to lay Iftikhar Eddauleh on his back (of this he was trebly resolved) and to discover who this black-armored warrior might be. Had he never seen that graceful figure make those valorous strokes before? So Longsword nursed his hate and his curiosity, and threw all his energy day and night into the siege works.

In the days that came it pleased Heaven to put a last test upon the faith and steadfastness of the army. Not even in burning Phrygia had they parched more with thirst. Midsummer, a Syrian sun, a country always nearly arid, and all the pools stopped by Iftikhar, ere he retired within the city;--no wonder there was misery!

"O for one cooling drop from some mountain stream of France!" Had the army joined in one prayer, it would have been this. For a skinful of fetid water, brought far, fetched three deniers, and when the mult.i.tude struggled around the one fountain Siloam, often as the scanty pool bubbled, what was it among so many? To secure water to keep the breath in Rollo, Richard went nigh to the bottom of a lightened purse; and still the heavens would cloud and darken and clear away, bringing no rain, but only the pitiless heat.

In Phrygia, and even at Antioch, men had been able to endure with grace. But now, with victory all but in their grasp, with the Tomb of Christ under their very eyes, how could mortal strength brook such delay? Yet the work on the siege engines never slackened. A rumor that a relieving army was coming from Egypt made them all speed. Out of the bare country Northern determination and Northern wit found timbers and water and munitions. They built catapults to cast arrows, mangonels to fling rocks. Gaston of Bearn directed the erecting of three huge movable towers for mounting the ramparts. There were prayers and vows and exhortations; then on Thursday, the fourteenth of July, came the attack--the repulse.

It must have been because Mary Kurkuas's prayers availed with G.o.d that Richard did not perish that day. If ever man sought destruction, it was he. When he saw the stoutest barons shrinking back, and all the siege towers shattered or fixed fast, he knew a sinking of heart, a blind rage of despair as never before. Then from the Gates of Herod and St. Stephen poured the Egyptians in their sally to burn the siege towers. Longsword was in the thickest of the human whirlpool. When he saw the garrison reeling back, and Iftikhar Eddauleh trying vainly to rally, he pressed in mad bravado under the very Gate of Herod, casting his war-cry in the infidels' teeth. But while a hundred javelins from the walls spun round him, of a sudden he heard a name--his own name, shouted from the battlements; and the blast of darts was checked as if by magic. The chieftain in the sombre armor had sprung upon the crest of the rampart, had doffed his casque, and was gesturing with his cimeter.

"Musa!" cried the Norman, falling back a step, scarce knowing what to hope or dread.

The Spaniard, while ten thousand stared at him, friend and foe, bowed and flourished in salutation, then, s.n.a.t.c.hing up a light javelin, whirled it down into the earth at Longsword's feet.

"Death to the infidel!" the Christian crossbowmen at Richard's heels were crying as they levelled. But the Norman checked them with the threat:--

"Die yourselves if a bolt flies!"

Then he drew the dart from the ground, and removed a sc.r.a.p of parchment wrapped round the b.u.t.t.

"Be before the Gate of Herod two hours after sunset. Bear the s.h.i.+eld with the St. Julien stag, and the sentinels will not shoot. Your wife is in the city and is well."

And while Richard read, the Spaniard had saluted the wondering Christians once more and vanished behind the rampart. The Norman walked away with a heart at once very light and very heavy. Musa in Jerusalem, Mary in Jerusalem, Iftikhar in Jerusalem! A great battle waged all day, and to all seeming lost,--the Crusade a failure! He heard men, who all those awful years had never blenched, whispering among themselves whether they could make their way to Joppa and escape to France, since G.o.d had turned His face away. As he pa.s.sed through the camp, Tancred and Gaston both spoke to him, asking whether in duty to their men they ought to press the siege longer. Should they wait, the great Egyptian army would come, and not a Christian would escape.

But Richard, with his vow and the blood of Gilbert de Valmont on his soul, replied:--

"Fair lords, answer each to your own conscience; as for me, I will see the Cross upon the walls of Jerusalem to-morrow, or die. There is no other way."

And both of these chieftains, who had been hoping against hope, answered stoutly:--

"Our Lady bless you, De St. Julien! You say well; there is no other way for those who love Christ!"

So Richard waited outside the Gate of Herod during the soft gloaming, while the night grew silent, and when, after the searchers for the dead and dying had gone their rounds, naught was heard save the whistling of the scorching wind as it beat against the walls and towers, laden with the dust and blight from the desert. No soldiers'

laughter and chatter from the camp that night; no merriment upon the battlements. The Christians were numbed by their defeat; the Moslems knew the storm had not pa.s.sed.

Then, when it had grown very dark, he heard a bird-call from the gateway,--a second,--and when he answered, a figure unarmed and in a sombre caftan drew from the blackness. The Norman and the Spaniard embraced many times in profoundest joy.

They sat together on the timber of a shattered catapult, and told each other the tale of the many things befallen since they parted on the hill before Antioch.

"And Mary?" Richard would ask time and again.

"She is more beautiful than the light, after the tempest pa.s.ses and the rainbow comes. We talk of you daily, and of her joy and yours when the Crusade is ended."

Richard groaned from the bottom of his soul.

"Would G.o.d," he cried, "my own fate were woe or weal to me, and not to another. It must have been sinful to keep her love after I took the cross. For how can I have joy in heaven, if"--and he crossed himself--"I am ever worthy to pa.s.s thither, thinking that Mary is in tears?"

Musa pressed his hand tighter.

"You are sad to-night. Why not? I know the stake you set on the Crusade, yet bow to the will of Allah. What is destined is destined by Him; what is destined by Him is right. Cannot even a Christian say that? You have done all that mortal man can; the task is too hard.

Your vow is cleared. Return to France. Mary shall go with you. Have joy in St. Julien, and think of Musa, your brother, kindly."

But Richard had leaped to his feet.

"No, as G.o.d lives and reigns!" he cried, "I will not bow. We have endured a great defeat. You know all; I betray no trust. Our towers are nigh wrecked, our throats are burned with drought, half our fighting-men are wounded, you have two warriors in the city to one in our camp. But know this, brother mine that you are: we Franks differ from you Moslems. For in the face of disaster you cry 'Doom,' and bend your necks; but we hold our heads proudly and cry 'On, once more!' And so we master very doom; for there is no doom to strong men who forget that black word 'fate'!"

Musa put his hand affectionately around the Norman's ponderous shoulders.

"Verily, O Richard, I think if the rebel jinns were to gather a squadron of Franks about them, they could shake even the throne of Allah!"

"I am in no jest," replied Richard, and his tone told that he spoke true. But Musa said, doubting:--

"I cannot believe you can attack again before the Egyptian army comes.

It is right to fight so long as there is hope. Allah never commands men to invite death."

"Then answer this," demanded the Christian, hotly; "if you lay in my tent, would you turn back and hear all France say, 'This is one of the cavaliers who rode to Jerusalem, found the paynim arrows bitter, and rode away'? By the splendor of G.o.d, you would die ten thousand deaths before! You dare not deny; I know you well."

"No, my brother," said Musa, very simply, "I do not deny. But for Mary's sake do not throw your life away."

The Norman laughed bitterly.

"By your 'doom' I perish as soon over my cups at St. Julien as on the siege tower at Jerusalem. G.o.d knows what comes to-morrow. Tell Iftikhar Eddauleh that I ask no greater favor from Heaven than to meet him once more face to face. Yet after his craven flight at Antioch I wonder he has courage to bear himself so valiantly on the walls."

"I will tell him; and believe me, he was no coward, as I hear, at Antioch. From his own lips to-day I learned he wishes nothing better than to meet you."

"And you will guard Mary from him?--ever?"

"While Allah grants me breath."

"You are a true brother, Musa, son of Abdallah!" cried the Norman, pressing the other's hand in a grasp that brought pain even to those fingers of steel. "Sometimes I think you are a better friend to me than I to myself."

"And no message for Mary?" asked the Spaniard, softly.

Richard drew his hand across his face. He did not speak for a long while. Then the words came very slowly:--