HOW MORGIANA WOUND HER LAST SPELL
Wrong had been done Iftikhar, when the Franks boasted he had fled headlong with Kerbogha and his coward atabegs. Had all his peers in the Moslem host fought as he, there might have been fewer Christian Glorias. Where death was thickest he had sought it. Under his cimeter had sped many a Frankish life. At the end he had led the final charge of his "devoted," maddest rider in all that headlong band. But doom had been against him; the Ismaelians had died where they could not conquer. Iftikhar, escaping fifty deaths, had thrown himself into a band of flying Turkomans, beseeching, threatening, adjuring, to make them turn for a last stand. One howl met his prayer.
"Fate is against us! Flee! Flee! Allah aids the Franks!"
He struck the fugitives with his cimeter; they fled more swiftly. He thrust his beast across their path; the good Arabian was nigh swept down in the vortex of the panic. Panic everywhere, the Franks flying after, each Christian a raging jinn whose joy was slaying.
Then at last Iftikhar knew he could do no more, and he turned the head of his wounded steed to ride on the Christian lances. But just as he was casting shield away, that death might light more quickly, the hand of a strange rider plucked his saddle rein, and before the grand prior could strike at the unknown, Zeyneb's voice sounded in his ears above the "Montjoye!" of the onrushing French:
"What, Cid? You ride to death?"
"Unhand!" thundered Iftikhar, "all is lost! I know how to die!"
But Zeyneb with a wondrous strength had tugged at the bits and swung the charger's head; and close by, the Egyptian saw another rider, unarmored, in a flowing dress,—but the face was turned from him.
"You are mad, lord!" cried Zeyneb. "Do not cast yourself away. Fate will change, Allah willing!"
Then, as Iftikhar struggled to turn, a squadron of flying Persian light horse struck them, and swept the three riders away perforce in its flight.
"Faster, faster!" the Persians were shrieking; "the Franks! Their horses are vultures! their strength as of monsters!"
Iftikhar cursed while he strove vainly to escape them and ride against the pursuers.
"Fools, sons of pigs and Jews!" roared he; "see, scarce ten men follow, and you an hundred. Turn; ride them down!"
"They are ten sheytans," yelled the rest, spurring harder. "Speed, brothers, speed!"
Iftikhar glanced back. Behind him flew De Valmont and Tancred, who knew him by his armor, and taunted:—
"Face to face, Cid Iftikhar; did you fly thus at Palermo?"
But the Persians pricked their beasts to a headlong gallop; the Franks rode down some, and slew them; the rest made their escape. When the Christians left the chase in the evening, Iftikhar found himself with a wounded and weary steed upon the bare Syrian hill slope, with only Zeyneb for escort. The strangely dressed rider he had noticed, followed half an arrow flight behind; but the Egyptian gave little heed. Hardly had he drawn rein before another squadron of breathless riders joined him, their horses' flanks in blood and foam. Their chief was Kerbogha, master that morning of two hundred thousand sword-hands, master that night of scarce fifty. Iftikhar bowed his casque in gloomy salutation, but the lord of Mosul did not return it.
"Cid Iftikhar," came his words, cold as ice, "we have played our chess-game with fortune. Mated! and we play no more! Forget that I have known you!"
"I do not understand, my lord!" protested Iftikhar, his color rising.
"Clearer, then," and Kerbogha peered backward, lest the Frankish banners tossed again in the gloaming. "We went to Antioch first to crush the Franks, but also to gather, unhindered and unsuspected, an army to grind Barkyarok and the Kalif. We gathered the army. Where it is now, demand of the winds and the blood-red plain! Our plot is ended. Barkyarok will suspect. Let Hassan Sabah gain his empire in his own way. I must save myself by forswearing the Ismaelians and be all loyalty to the arch-sultan. As for you, let Allah save or slay, you are neither friend nor foe to me. Go your way; forget me, as I forget you!"
"But our oaths—our pledge of comradeship till death!" urged Iftikhar, in rising wrath.
"Death? A hundred thousand dead Moslems have wiped out the bond. Cursed be the day I listened to your plots!"
"Then answer sword to sword!" raged the Egyptian, in frenzy, and ready to join mortal grapple. But a shout from the emir's escort sent Kerbogha fleeing away, without so much as replying.
"The Franks! They follow! Flight, flight!"
A false alarm, but the lord of Mosul and his fifty had vanished in the thickening twilight; his speed such that the hoof-beats were soon faint in the distance. Iftikhar looked about him. The night was sowing the stars. The young moon was shining with its feathery crescent. Far and wide stretched the desolate hills, fast fading into one black waste. Lost! the battle lost! the hope of empire lost! the vengeance on Richard lost! the love of Mary Kurkuas lost! He had only a wounded horse, his cimeter, and his arms. That morning twelve thousand men would have died for him at his nod. Yes, and had died! It was the stroke of doom, the doom that had been written a million years, before Allah called the heavens out of smoke, the earth out of darkness; and there was no escaping. The Christians had turned back to Antioch, but Iftikhar knew where to find them. He could ride back on his tracks, enter their camp, slay seven men before dying himself, and give the lie to the taunts of De Valmont and Tancred. So doing he would save one last treasure—his honor.
"Zeyneb!" he said sternly, "go your way. You are at the end of your service. I must ride to Antioch."
"And why to Antioch, Cid?"
"To win back the honor you stole from me."
Iftikhar had leaped to the ground to tighten his girths, when the strange rider came beside him and dismounted. As he rose from his task, he saw a veiled woman facing him; and while he started and trembled, she swept the veil from her face. Morgiana standing in the moonlight!
For an instant not a word passed. Then Iftikhar spoke: "Morgiana, surely Eblees will gain you at last, since he sends you here." His voice was shaking with towering passion.
"I have come to save you, my Cid," answered she.
"To save me?" burst from the Egyptian. "To save me? To drag down to Gehenna rather; to speed me to endless torture!"
She turned her face away. "Not that," she pleaded, "not that. Have I not loved you, and been ever faithful?"
He sprang at her, caught her by the throat.
"You have indeed loved me! Hearken: through your love for me you strengthened the Greek to resist me; through your love for me you saved Richard and his comrades, and plucked the Greek from me; through your love the accursed Norman and Duke Godfrey were able to escape, to warn their army, when ready to drop unresisting into the net spread by Kerbogha. This siege, this battle, this loss of myriads, is your handiwork; is yours,—and for it you shall die. Would to Allah I had killed you long ago!"
He had drawn his cimeter, and brandished above her. She raised her eyes and looked at him unflinching.
"Wallah!" cried he, wavering, "there is magic in your eyes. The sheytans aid you! Yet you shall die!"
Morgiana's face was not pale now; all the blood had returned; her eyes were brighter than red coals. She wrested her neck from his grasp, and caught his sword-hand, held it fast, with a strange, giant-like strength that frighted him.
"Strike!" cried she; "but as Allah lives and judges, first hear. Where are your twelve thousand? I have seen them all dead. Your hopes of power? Sped to the upper air. And the Greek? Allah knoweth. All these lost, but not I. No, by the All-Great you shall not strike until you hear me; for I am strong—stronger than you. I have been cursed, but have not replied; been hated, but paid in love; been wronged, but remained faithful. Now hope goes to ruin; war, love, friends,—all is lost,—saving I. But me you shall not lose. Either on earth you shall keep me near, to joy in your joys, to sorrow in your sorrows; or dying, my spirit shall be yet closer, to follow your path in heaven, earth, or hell—bittering every sweet, trebling every woe, haunting, goading, torturing, until you curse tenfold the hour you forgot the love of Morgiana, maid of Yemen!"
And when Morgiana had spoken, she cast Iftikhar's hand from her, and bowed her head, as if waiting the stroke. But the Ismaelian's arm had fallen. He stood as in a trance, for before his storm-driven soul passed the vision of that Morgiana of other days, before the babe died and he set eyes on the Greek,—those days when he boasted he asked no Paradise, for the kiss of the fairest houri was already his. His sword-arm trembled. The woman said not a word, but raised her eyes again, not burning, but mild and tender he saw them now, lit with soft radiance in the dim moonlight. He felt the mad fury chained as by some resistless spell. Presently he spoke, the words dragged as it were from the depths of his soul:—
"Some jinn is aiding you! Live then this once. I shall be cursed again for sparing."
Morgiana's only answer was to kneel and kiss his feet. Then she rose and stood with bent head and folded arms waiting his wishes. But Zeyneb had flitted between.
"Cid," he said abruptly, "there are horsemen approaching, very likely Christians; the gallop is that of heavy northern horses. Let us ride."
"Ride?" asked the dazed Iftikhar, "whither?" And he looked at Morgiana. His iron will was broken; he was content to let her lead him. She had already remounted.
"Toward Emesa, my Cid," she said directly.
"And what is there?" asked he, still dazed.
"The road to Egypt. You have still a name and a fame. All is not lost while Allah gives life. You are still young. The Egyptian kalif will rejoice to welcome such a warrior to his service."
"Mashallah!" cried Iftikhar, raising his hands, "when did you devise all this for me?"
"Many days since, lord. For in the hemp smoke it was written Kerbogha and the 'devoted' should fail."
"And you have been hidden at El Halebah?"
"No," she replied, "I have been closer than you dreamed, in your tents before Antioch, concealed by Zeyneb, to be near you when the need should be great. When the Christians stormed the camp I was taken by Duke Godfrey. In gratitude he set me free, and gave me a horse. I found Zeyneb and followed after you, that you might not cast your life away."
He went up to her as she sat on the saddle, put his arms about her, kissed her many times. And upon that Syrian hillside, under the stars, Morgiana found her moment of Paradise. He said nothing; but the Arabian laughed as she looked up at the sky.
"Praised be Allah, All-merciful," she cried. "The old is sped, the new is waiting. Mary the Greek is gone—will be forgotten. May I never hear word of her again!"
"I have been blind to the love of this woman," muttered Iftikhar, bounding into the saddle; "I have been blind, and Heaven restores sight. Yet if Mary the Greek is to be forgotten, may she never again cross my path. But this is left to Allah."