“What is the bad? Is it near?”
“Oh, knight, speak low—the news is bad enough and the ill, though not on us, close after us!”
“Thou art excited, my friend; sit down and then unfold the matter. Meanwhile I’ll light a faggot.”
“In truth, I can’t sit, and I’ve reason to be nervous.” Then the man spread out his arms and his fingers as if he would stand all ready to fly; his eyes wide open, staring as he talked.
“Our Sheik leaves Jericho to-morrow; summoned by the sheriff of Mecca. The sheriff is supreme to Moslem. The command is for war toward the east. Blood, blood; when will the world be done shedding blood!”
“Well, my loving alarmist,” replied Sir Charleroy, coolly, “that’s not very bad news. If the Sheik leaves us, we’ll be free; if he takes us, there will be a change and for that I could almost cry ‘Blessed be Allah!’ I am sickened, crushed, dry-rotted by this hum-drum life; this slavery; dancing abject attendance on a gluttonous master, whose sole object seems to be eating or dallying about the marquees of his harem.”
“Oh, Sir Charleroy, the change has dreadful things for us!”
“Why?”
“I heard that the runner bringing the mandate from Mecca brings also command that all prisoners, such as we, must be made to embrace Islamism, enlist to die, if need be, in this so-called holy war, or be sent to the slave mart.”
“This is a carnival for the furies! Why, Ichabod, the latter is burial alive; the former death with a dishonored conscience!”