God Wills It! A Tale of the First Crusade

"And you too, friend," was her reply, "speak a tongue that makes me half believe you Christian! And no man living would liken your hands to any save ditcher's spades!"

"By Mohammed's beard!" exclaimed the fellow, good-naturedly, "you have a sharp tongue in your little body. Well, go; and let the kind jinns fly with you. Though almost I think you are girl, and would cry to you 'a kiss!'"

"Never to such as you!" the retort. The gate closed behind her. All was dark. The last lamps on the great domes were out. Mary stole on in silence. There was not the slightest sound of bird, beast, or stirring leaf; just light enough to see where amid the trees the avenue led away from El Halebah to the outer road. Along that roadway—sixty miles due east, so she had reckoned—lay the camp of the Christians—and Richard Longsword! She was alone, and free! For a while neither weariness nor fear smote her. The ground could not fly fast enough under her feet. Again and again she wandered against thicket or trunk in the dimness of the trees, but the way led on, and she did not lose it. There was a strange gladness in her heart. "To Richard! to Richard!" O had she but eagle's wings to lend speed to her going! Suddenly the trees stopped. She was at the edge of the palace groves. To one side under the starlight she could just see the untraced masses of something—Aleppo; to the other side, the east, the stars told her, the hill and plain country stretched out scarce discernible. Mary turned her face toward the east, and saw the grove sink out of sight in the darkness. Then she walked yet faster.

It was noon, and the Syrian sun beat down pitilessly. The spring foliage and buds seemed wilting under the fiery eye. The little brooks on the hillside had already dried to a trickling thread. Everywhere the eye lit on reddish sand; red sand-hills and plain country with here and there a tree. The road had faded to the merest trail, where a few horses had trodden the thin weeds a day or two before. Mary rose from the stone by this roadway, where she had been sitting beneath a solitary sumac. She had eaten her bread, had lifted the water in her hands out of the tiny pool. She was weary—utterly weary. Had she been told she had traversed a thousand leagues since setting forth the night before, she could well have believed it. Yet reason bespoke that she had come less than a score of miles. She was footsore, hungry, frightened. The caw of the distant crow bore terror; the whir of the wind over the sunny plain half seemed the howl of desert wolves. Already her feet trudged on painfully, while her unaccustomed dress was dusty and torn. Each moment the utter folly of her flight grew upon her. She was alone, a helpless maid in the midst of that often harried country which lay between Antioch and Aleppo. Only once had she met human kind. During the morning two swarthy-skinned peasants, flogging an obstinate ass toward Aleppo, had stopped, and gazed curiously at this solitary youth in page's dress, but with the face of one of Sultan Redouan's harem beauties.

"Brother," one of the peasants had cried, "do you know that from Antioch to Aleppo scarce one house is inhabited? The Christians—may Allah bring them to perdition!—have sacked Dana and Sermada, and left only the dogs alive. All honest folk have fled nearer to Aleppo or southward."

"I thank you, kind sheik," came the answer in an Arabic that made the peasant marvel, "but I know my road. Yet are there any Christians now at Dana?"

"Praised be the Compassionate! Since the battle at Harenc they keep closer to their camps, though Allah that day vouchsafed them victory. It is told that Yaghi-Sian is making so many sallies, they are more than taxed to repel him, glory be to the Most High!"

"I thank you, good sheik; peace be with you!" And Mary had hastened on her way, leaving the peasants to wonder.

One said: "Let us go back. This youth is no common wayfarer. Let us question him further."

But the other wisely answered:—

"The day is hot. What is written in the book of doom is written. Leave the youth to God! Let us reach Aleppo and rest!"

So they fell again to beating the ass, while Mary dropped them out of view. She had been made less weary then, and the dialogue had lent wings to her feet. Presently she came to a wretched village: squalid, dark, rubble houses with thatched roofs; a few poor fields around, with the weeds growing higher than the sprouting corn. She hesitated to walk through the single street, but not a soul met her. The doors of the houses gaped open; within was scanty household stuff scattered over the earthen floors. Every house bore signs of hasty leaving. Two or three were mere charred shells, for the torch had been set to their thatches. Over in the field a flock of crows and kites were wheeling,—some carrion,—but Mary did not go near. Yet, as she walked this street, as it seemed of the dead, forth ran snapping and barking several gray, blear-eyed dogs. For a moment she quaked lest they tear her in pieces. But at the sound of her voice they sank back whining, and followed on a long time, sniffing the bread under her girdle, and hoping to be fed.

She shook them off at last, half glad, half sorry, to have nothing living near her. And now she was sitting by the roadway, looking down into the tiny pool and thinking. She took off her shoes and let her little white feet trail in the water,—very little and very white, never fashioned by the Creator, so she told herself with a sobbing laugh, to be bruised by the hard road. Once Musa at Palermo had composed verses in praise of her feet; how they were shaped only to tread upon flowers, or to whisk in dances, or be bathed with perfumes worth an emir's ransom. Holy Mother! and what were they like to walk over now! She looked at her hands; as she dipped them in the brook nearly all the bronzing of Morgiana had washed away. They too had been praised, times past numbering. A learned poet at Constantinople had written some polished iambics, likening them to the hands of Artemis, virgin huntress on the Arcadian hills. How helpless and worthless they were! Mary saw her face in the pool also. Her beauty—despite the disguise—her curse; the bane of so many lovers! "Better, better," came the thought, "a thousand times I had been foul as an old hag, than to have my beauty lay snares for my soul!" And then the thought followed: "No, not better, whatever be my fate; for by my beauty I won the love of Richard, and the memory of his love cannot be taken from me in a thousand years!" Then, speaking to herself, she said resolutely: "Now, my foolish Mary de St. Julien, though your feet are so weary, they must prepare to be still more weary. For there is many a long league yet before you see the Christian camp at Antioch, and set eyes on your dread Frankish lord."

So, telling herself that she was a soldier's daughter and a soldier's wife, that the toils of travel would be as nothing to her father's campaign with the Patzinaks, she arose to continue the toilsome way. But as she stood over the little pool, the water looked more cool and tempting than ever. It was tedious to drink from the hands—a cup! Her hands went up to her hair, where was the blue muslin turban so carefully wound by Morgiana; and underneath it a silken skullcap. She unwound the turban, her hair fell in soft brown tresses all over her shoulders. As she bent to fill the cap, in the water she saw again her face, framed now in the shining hair.

"Allah!" she cried, after the manner of the Arabs, "how beautiful I am! how Richard will love me!" And she laughed at her own complacency. A sudden shout made her start like a fawn when the hounds are baying; then a rush of hoofs, an outcry.

"Iftikhar! He is pursuing!" her thought; and Mary sprang to run up the sandy hillside. Not Iftikhar; from behind the little sand-hill to the west six horsemen had appeared in a twinkling: all on long-limbed, sleek-coated desert steeds. Mary ran as for dear life, scarce knowing what she did.

"Ya! Ya!" came the shout, in a mongrel Arabic, "a maid; seize! capture! a prize!"

It was all over in less time than the telling. Mary never knew how it befell. She was standing once more by the roadway; two men, dismounted, were holding her. The other four still sat on their saddles. All six were devouring her with their eyes, and pelting her with questions she had no wits to answer. Her captors, she began to judge, were roving Syrian cavalrymen—half warriors, half bandits, tall, wiry-limbed, swarthy, sharp-featured. They and their steeds were gorgeously decked out with strings of bright silk tassels. They wore light steel caps polished bright; at their sides were short cimeters; over their shoulders were curved bows and round, brass-studded targets. When they opened their bearded lips to chatter, their teeth shone sharp and white as of hungry cats. At last Mary found words. The blood of the great house of Kurkuas was in her veins. Even in this dire strait she knew how to put on pride and high disdain.

"Slaves," was her command, "unhand me! Who are you, so much as to look upon my face! By what right will you treat me as is unfit to one of your own coarse brood?"

The curve of the lip and the lordly poise for an instant disconcerted even the Syrians. But soon one of them answered, with a soldier's banter:—

"By the soul of my father, pretty one, I half dream you a sultana. Does Allah rain houris in youths' clothes upon the waste land betwixt Sermada and Harenc? Bismillah! we do not light every day on a partridge plump as you!"

"Let me go, fools," cried the Greek, turning very pale, but more with wrath than fear, "or you will find my little finger large enough to undo you all."

But at this the six only roared their laughter, and for a moment ogled their captive with sinful eyes that made Mary's soul turn sick. She made one last appeal, and only her own heart knew what it cost her to say the word.

"Act not in folly. Carry me to Aleppo, and deliver me safely to the great emir, Iftikhar Eddauleh. He will give you for me my weight in gold."

Another laugh, but the six looked at one another.

"Tell me," quoth the earlier speaker, "O Star that falls in the Desert, how you come here, if you are possessed by Iftikhar Eddauleh?"

Mary only flushed with new anger.

"Beast, who are you that I should answer? Do as I bid you, or it will be to your hurt!"

"Truly, O Yezid," began a second Syrian, "it may be as she says. Let us ride to Aleppo."

But Yezid, who seemed the leader of the band, gave a deep curse.

"To Aleppo? We are too little loved by Redouan to risk our heads within bowshot of his executioner. Look upon the maid; she is one of the Franks, whoever she be. She will fetch a hundred purses in the market. Yet I am minded myself to possess her!"

Mary looked at the Syrian; noted his coarse, carnal eye, and the impure passion in it, and felt her heart turning to stone.

"Dear God," ran her prayer, "give me strength to bear all; for I am in the clutch of demons."

But the other five had raised a great outcry.

"Verily, O Yezid," shouted one, "you are a river of generosity. Six of us capture the maid, and you protest that she is yours alone. May Allah cut me off from Paradise if I part with my claim to her."

"And who are you, O Zubair," raged back Yezid, his teeth more catlike than ever, "to dispute my right? Am I not the chief? When we held the rich Jew without water four days since, did I not share the ransom equally? And now that we possess this maid, whose form and face fit my eye as my sword its sheath—" and as he spoke he laid his hand on Mary's bare neck, making the white flesh creep under his foul touch, and lifting the soft mass of her telltale hair. The five cut him short with one yell. "Never, insatiate one!" And Zubair added: "Let the maid be sold, and the money divided. If we may not take her to Aleppo, let us swing her across a saddle and spur away to Hamath, where there is a good market! As you have said,—a hundred purses for such an houri of the Franks. Better profit twenty fold than watching these roads, when the Christians have swept the country clean!"

Yezid grinned more savagely than ever; and Mary closed her eyes that she might not see his leer.

"I have sworn it," cried he. "This once must you sons of Eblees give way. I like the girl well. Not for an hundred purses would I part with her. Is she not my captive? shall I not bear her away to the mountains where is our camp, and the other women?"

Mary closed her eyes tighter. She knew then, if not before, that it had been a mad boast indeed when she said to Morgiana, "Naught can befall me worse than I suffer here at El Halebah." The evening before she had been hailed princess, sovereign of thousands—and now! Her eyes she could close; not her ears, and the foul speech of the angry Syrians smote them, though her sense grew numb by sheer agony. Louder and louder the quarrel. Presently she heard a great shout from Yezid.

"By the Beard of Mohammed! either you shall give the girl up to me, to work my will, or my cimeter is in her breast." His clutch tightened, and Mary saw through her eyelashes a bright blade held before her. "Death at last, the Blessed Mother be praised!" and she closed her eyes, and tried to murmur the words of "Our Father." But the voice of Zubair grew conciliatory. "Valiant captain, not so angry. You have the chief claim, but not the only one. Let us not broil, good comrades that we are. True the Prophet—on whom be peace—forbids dice; but Allah will be compassionate, and I have some about me. Let us cast for the maid. You win and possess her. We,—she goes to Hamath, and the sale's money is divided amongst us five!"

Yezid began to growl in his beard, but the shout of the rest silenced him. "Let it be as you said!" he muttered. And Mary, opening her eyes, now saw Zubair and the chief standing by the rock, and shaking the dice in the hollows of their hands. How strange it all looked! On the cast of four bits of ivory her own weal or woe was hanging! The fortune of her—a Grecian princess, a baroness of France, a Sultana of the Ismaelians! Was it not a dream? One cast,—a curse from Zubair. A second,—Yezid smiled and smirked toward her. Again Zubair cast,—again he cursed; and when Yezid lifted his hand he gave a loud, beastly laugh.

"Praises be to Allah! You have all lost. This houri, comes she here from the clouds or from Aleppo, is mine. Ya! I can wait no more to kiss her!" But just as Mary felt sight and sound reeling when he seized her, there was a great howl from the Syrians.

"Flight! To horse! O Allah, save!" And down the eastern road Mary saw, not six, but sixty, cavalrymen in headlong gallop; all with white robes and turbans, and at the head a rider whose armor was bright as the sun.

"Away, my peacock!" shouted Yezid, who, even in that moment, tried to swing Mary into his saddle before him. But as the words sped from his sinful throat, a shaft of Iftikhar went through his horse's flank, and the wounded beast was plunging.

"Allah akhbar!" the yell of the Ismaelians as they swept around Mary's captors, almost ere the luckless bandits could strike spur; and it was Iftikhar's own hand that plucked Mary from the clutch of Yezid.

"Bind fast!" his command. "Bismillah! what were they about to do?"

"This beast had won me at dice. He was to carry me to his den in the mountains, he boasted," Mary said, with twitching lips.

"Mercy, O Sea of Compassion!" Yezid was whining; "how should I know that I offended my lord?"

"Ya," hissed Iftikhar; "strike off the heads of these five here; let the jackals eat them. But their chief shall go to Aleppo, where we will plunge his head in a sack of quicklime."

Then, with not a word to Mary, he had his men devise a horse-litter, placed her in it, and the whole troop headed again for Aleppo.

CHAPTER XXXII

HOW MORGIANA PROFFERED TWO CUPS

It was the next morning at El Halebah that Mary found Morgiana in her aviary. Here, in a broad chamber at the top of the palace, too high for any vulgar eye that chanced across the Kuweik to light on the dwellers of this wind-loved spot, the Arabian had her eyry. The high openings in the walls were overhung with fine, nigh invisible nettings, the floor strewn with white sand; and, despite the height, means had been found to keep a little fountain playing in a silver basin; and just now two finches were gayly splashing in its tiny pool. All around in deep tubs were growing oleanders, myrtle, laurel, although the birds made difficult the lives of the blossoms; there were hairy ferns, and the scent of sweet thyme was in the air; around the arabesqued columns roved dark, cool ivy; in and out through the meshes of the netting buzzed the adventurous honey-bee, flying thus high in hopes of spoil. Everywhere were the birds—finch, thrush, sparrow, ring-dove, and even a nightingale that, despite the drooping for his vanished freedom, Morgiana had by some magic art persuaded to sing evening after evening, and make the whole room one garden of music. As the young Arabian stood, upon her shoulder perched a consequential blackcap cocking his saucy head; and a wood-pigeon was hovering over her lips trying to carry away the grain there in his bill. Morgiana had named all the birds, and they learned to answer to their calls. As for fearing her, they would sooner have fluttered at their own shadows. Mary pushed back the door, stepped inside, and as she did so a whir of wings went through all the plants, for she was not so well known to the birds as was their mistress. But after the first flash and chirp there was silence once more, save as the doves in one corner kept up their coo, coo, around a cherished nest. Morgiana opened her lips; the pigeon swept away the grain, and lit upon a laurel spray, proud of his booty. Then the Arabian turned to her visitor. The Greek was very pale; under her eyes dark circles and red, as if she had slept little and cried much. For a moment she did not speak. Then Morgiana brushed the blackcap from her shoulder, and ran and put her arms about Mary.

"Ah! sweet sister,—so I have you back again! It was as I said, folly, impossible madness."

"Yes, madness!" answered the Greek, very bitterly. "I was indeed mad to forget that I am naught but a weak woman, made to be admired and toyed with, for strong men's holiday. But oh, it was passing sweet at first to think, 'I am free—I am going to Richard!'" And at the name of the Norman, her eyes again were bright with tears.

"O dearest and best!" cried Morgiana, clasping her closer, "what can I say to you, how comfort you? I heard the eunuchs tell of the plight in which Iftikhar found you. My blood runs chill as I speak. Allah! There are worse things than to be a captive of Iftikhar Eddauleh!"

"You say well, my sister; but how came Iftikhar to follow me? You did not betray? You told the tale I gave you?"

"Yes," protested the Arab, with half a laugh. "But in the morning, while Iftikhar foamed and the eunuchs dragged the pond, there came on me the desire to breathe the hemp smoke, and when the craving comes, not all the jinns of the abyss may stop me. And as I reeled over the smoke, I saw you in direful peril, clutched by wanton hands, facing a fate worse than death! Then I fought with myself. You were gone at last! And my evil nature said to me, 'Leave the Greek to her living death. Iftikhar is yours alone, you may win back his heart again, and be happy—happy!' But, O dearest, when I thought of your agony, I could not be silent. I told Iftikhar whither you had fled, and he spurred after and saved you."

"Yes," echoed Mary, "he has 'saved' me, as you well say. Not a word did he speak to me on the homeward journey. Last night I fell asleep the moment my head touched the pillow. Oh, bliss, how sweet that long sleep was! And in it I saw Richard Longsword, and he was holding my hand, and I could look up into his face. Then I awoke—Hakem, near me, saying that by the command of the emir hereafter he was to have my ordering! It was passing from heaven to nethermost hell. And here I am again! Helpless, passive, for others to work their will upon! while twenty leagues away lies Antioch and Richard and perfect joy. Yet I thank you, sister,—there is something worse than to be in the hands of Iftikhar, but God alone knows if there be anything I may pay you for the debt I owe."

"Do you believe in a good God?" said Morgiana, stepping backward and looking into the Greek's eyes.

"Do not Christians and Moslems alike believe in Him?" was the wondering answer.

"Then," persisted Morgiana, a fierce ring coming into her tone; "why does He suffer you to endure such sorrow?"

"He alone knows," was the reply. "It is as I said,—some fearful sin that I have committed and forgotten; or else"—and there was a new brightness in the eye of the Greek—"I am permitted to endure some pain that my husband had otherwise been made to bear."

"O foolish one!" came the retort of the Arabian. "You sin? The soul of Allah is not whiter than yours; no, not as white! Richard Longsword is strong enough to endure his own pains; yes, and has endured them if you are to him as he to you! I will curse God—you may not stay me. Unkind, cruel, He is! All-powerful indeed, yet using His power to plunge His creatures into misery!"

The Greek shuddered. "Beware! He will strike you dead!" her warning.

"Dead?" echoed Morgiana, lifting her dark bare arms high, as if calling down heavenly wrath, and bidding it welcome; "almost I think His power ends there! If He had mercy on me, I were dead long ago. But no—I go on, living, breathing, talking, laughing,"—and here she did indeed laugh, in a terrible manner that made Mary quake.

"Pity me. God is angry enough with us already. Anger Him no more!" cried the Greek.

Morgiana laughed again. "Hei!" she continued, "let us look at our case with both eyes. You are back again at El Halebah. By your flight Iftikhar assuredly considers his pledge to you at an end. What do you expect?"

"To be treated like any other captive of his 'bow and spear,' as you people say. To be at his will, sometimes to be caressed as these birds are by you, sometimes neglected; when I grow old or out of favor to see new women thrust before me, as, St. Theodore pity me, I have supplanted you. I shall in time grow sleepy, fat, and in a poor way contented; for such is the manner of the harem. Within four walls and a garden I shall live out my life. If God is still angry, I shall become very old. At last I shall die—when I shall have been among you Moslems so long that I can scarce remember 'Our Father.' Where my soul then will go, I know not; it will be worth little; sodden and dried by this cageling's life till an ox's were nobler."

"O dearest," cried the Arabian, laughing, but half in tears now, "your words are arrows to my soul. You must be free, free—either you or I. What would you give to be truly free? Give for rest, peace, joy, an end of sorrow, struggle, longing?"

"That waits only beyond the stars," answered the Greek. But she started when she saw the wandering glitter in Morgiana's eyes, and there was a wild half-rhythm in the Arabian's words when she replied: "Why not the stars and beyond? Why not seek out the pathways of the moon, the gates of the sun, the enchanted islands of the sweet West, and rest, rest, sleep, sleep—pangless, painless, passionless!"

"Morgiana!" exclaimed Mary. The other answered still in half-chant. "Yes, there is a way—a way. I will go, will return, and to one of us the door is opened,—opened wide!"

Then with a gliding, uneasy step she started away. "Back!" warned Morgiana to Mary, who attempted to follow. "I will do myself no harm. I return at once." Almost immediately she reëntered, in each hand a silver cup, the cups identical, each filled with violet sherbet. She set them upon the slab by the fountain. There was no madness in her glance now.

"I am thirsty," said the Greek, simply; "may I drink?"

"Drink?" repeated the Arabian, with a strange intonation. "Yes, in Allah's name, but first hearken! Many years ago, in Bagdad, a wise old woman taught me of an Indian drug, two pellets, small as shrivelled peas, in a little wine. Drink, and go to sleep—sleep so sound that you waken only when Moukir and Nakir, the death angels, sift soul from body. In Palermo, Iftikhar brought to his harem a Moorish girl. It was the hour of the beginning of my sorrow. A little made my breast fire, and my jealousy was swifter than the falling stars, which are Allah's bolts against the rebel efreets. One night when the Moor drank sherbet, she tasted nothing, she went to sleep; they found her body with a smile on the lips—her soul—? Ask the winds and the upper air."