“Ah,” she thought, “victory! I can go if well attended.” She continued aloud; “Perhaps Sir Charleroy’s Egyptian might attend me, since our servants are busy in the groves.” The maiden called to her Ichabod, who had found a home in Harrimai’s establishment, his identity hidden under the assumed name Huykos, a name from the Nile land, meaning “Shepherd King.” “I’ll take it,” said Ichabod, one day to Sir Charleroy, “that all unknown I may follow my pilgrim comrade and perhaps honor my new found ‘Shepherd King.’”
“One will be a meager escort daughter,” interposed Harrimai.
“Oh, fear for me nothing, father. I’ll quickly be at Bozrah, where there are Israelites not a few who will be proud to aid thy daughter.”
“No, daughter it must not be. I’ll call the young men from the vineyard, if thou must go.”
“Another victory,” her heart whispered; then quickly turning to Sir Charleroy she exclaimed, “My father must not call the workmen from their tasks; what sayst thou? Wilt serve us both by joining my body-guard, Ahasuerus? Come, to please my father?”
The knight had hoped for and expected the summons, so needed no urgency and was instantly preparing for the start.
Harrimai was not pleased by the arrangement, and yet he was forced to thank the knight for consenting. His native courtliness compelled this much, and Rizpah’s genius had precluded all gainsaying on his part. And so they rode away, Rizpah in a delight, which she could not clearly define; Sir Charleroy blinded already by the cry that at last led to giant Samson’s blinding, namely: “Get her for me.” Ichabod masked under his name, Huykos, followed after, knowing that the knight was captive to the maid and feeling very happy over the circumstance. As he rode, his mind ran forward to the wedding, and he laughed again and again at the witty things he imagined himself saying at that wedding. Suddenly the scene changed from one of careless delight to one filled with the frights of impending peril. At a turn in the road, from behind a wall, there rose up a company of Mamelukes. Rizpah saw them the instant her companion did and exclaimed, as she half turned her camel:
“Let’s race back to Gerash!”
But four dusky sentinels were behind them. They were surrounded.
“’Tis fight or flight, the latter futile,” whispered the knight. They paused, and Ichabod joined them. Sir Charleroy drawing his sword again spoke: “Comrade it’s a desperate chance; a dozen to two; but we have taken such before together!”