He had been bought at Seville by one of the king’s purveyors, some years before, from the crew of a Barbary corsair, who had taken him with a captured Christian ship, after a long and hard fight, which cost them half their number. In this combat the nameless captive had performed prodigies of valour, fighting so desperately that even when sorely wounded, and assailed by five or six at once, he held out for some time after the rest of his comrades. At last he was struck down, and, as every one thought, slain; but when the deck was cleared, he was found still alive, to the amazement of the pirates, who thenceforth treated him with the utmost care, not only on account of the high price such a slave would fetch, but from a superstitious awe of one over whom death seemed to have no power.
“When he came to Grenada,” went on the emir, “he found favour with our king, who loveth strong and valiant men; and he named him ‘El Katoom’ (the strong), and would have had him take the faith of Islam, and be a captain of our host, as being a mighty man of valour. But the Christian said nay; and then was the king wroth, and laid before him the holy Koran and a sharp sword, and bade him choose between them. But the Christian said that he feared not death, and that the king might slay him if he would; but that it was ill done for a king to bid any man do what, in like case, he would not do himself. Then the king marvelled and let him be, and to this day he dwells in the palace unharmed, and all men wonder at him.”
“He is a brave man, be he who he may,” said De Claremont, with sparkling eyes. “Said’st thou, noble emir, that he is not suffered to go forth even of the palace gates?”
“Even so; for a certain wise man read in the stars that it was the fate of one like this slave to do much ill to the servants of the Prophet. Howbeit, methinks that prophecy spake of thee rather than of him; for thou art made in the same likeness as himself, and truly thy sword hath been mighty against the hosts of the faithful.”
Alured made no reply, and seemed lost in thought; and when they entered the fortress, the knight, after seeing the sentries relieved, the rescued captives cared for, and the emir lodged in a commodious upper room near his own, withdrew to think over, as calmly as he could, the astounding possibility of this mysterious slave being his lost brother Hugo, of whose blood he had till now believed himself guilty.
The more he thought of it, the more likely it seemed. Though he had seen Hugo fall, he had no proof of his death, having fled from the spot without looking behind him. And could there be two men in the world so exactly like himself, not only in face and form, but even in look and voice?
Nor was it hard to find an answer to the question how Hugo—if Hugo it were—after being left for dead at Calais, could have reappeared alive in Seville. He well remembered—for every detail of that fatal day was indelibly stamped on his memory—the Black Prince’s charge to him and his brother to watch the shore against a descent of the corsairs who infested the coast. Had some of these rovers landed and found a man in rich armour lying seemingly dead, their first thought would have been to strip him, and then, finding him still alive, to carry him off for ransom or sale as a slave. That the ship taken by the Barbary pirates was one of these corsairs, with Hugo on board, Alured had little doubt, for no peaceful trader could have so long resisted the superior numbers of the Africans, and the unknown Christian’s heroic and long-sustained combat against such fearful odds was just what might be expected of his gallant brother. Lastly, the captive’s strict confinement within the palace walls explained why Hugo—if it were he—had never sent word home that he was still alive.
Putting all this together, he felt sure that his wild guess was right, and his heart bounded with such a thrill of joy as had not pulsed through it for many a weary day.
“If this,” cried he, “be indeed the blessing of which good Brother Michael spake as awaiting me here in the south, he said truly, for all I have were a cheap price to pay for the knowledge that I am free of my brother’s blood, and may yet find him again!”
He lost no time in questioning the emir as to the personal habits and peculiarities of “El Katoom,” and learned that he had the lofty bearing of a man of high birth, that he excelled in all exercises, especially riding, and that, when in deep thought, he was wont to twist his hair round the forefinger of his left hand.