“We’ll find no prophet’s chamber here for such as we,” remarked Sir Charleroy.
“Perhaps,” said a comrade, “we may by force or cajoling find a breakfast; a cake or cruse of oil.”
“Anyhow,” replied the chief, “we must try for a little food. We can neither fight nor flee with gaunt hunger on our flanks. Who knows, after all, but that we may happen on a humane being in these parts.”
“Well, good captain, if we should find a Shulamite, black, but comely, she might be as loving to thee as that one of old was to Solomon, although——”
The sentence was broken off by the interrupting command of Sir Charleroy, “Men, quick to cover; to the lemon-tree grove on the right!”
A glance back revealed a host of armed men behind the knights.
“All saints defend!” cried the Templar, as the little band wheeled toward the refuge.
The tale of the battle to the death that ensued, is quickly told.
Sir Charleroy, though he had fought with reckless bravery, as one hotly pursuing death, alone survived. A bludgeon blow felled him; when he recovered consciousness, he beheld standing by his side a gorgeously bedecked Moslem. The clangor of the conflict was over; the blood in which he weltered, and the vicious eyes that watched him, were all that reminded the knight of what had recently transpired. Presently the latter addressed the one that stood guard: