In fact, the solitary rider who had just come dashing over the crest of a far-off ridge in the last glow of sunset, neared them so fast that the emir’s keen eye was soon able to recognize the messenger he had sent to Grenada; and Alured, with undisguised impatience, hurried down to hear his all-important tidings.
But the reply, for which he had waited so long, crushed all his hopes at one blow; for the king sternly refused to give up “the slave El Katoom” on any terms whatever!
CHAPTER XXVIII
Plot and Counter-plot
By a superhuman effort, Alured repressed his bitter sorrow at this sudden overthrow of his hopes. But the keen-eyed emir could not fail to see that he was sorely grieved; and, eager to lighten the trouble of one who had shown him such kindness, he called in the envoy, and questioned him closely, in the hope of learning something that might make the case less desperate.
But the envoy had little to add to what the letter itself contained. He could only tell that the Moorish king had seemed much disturbed by the news of El Zagal’s capture—had shown great emotion at the suggestion that the prophecy which he had hitherto applied to El Katoom might refer to the White Knight instead—and had then had a long conference with some of his wisest counsellors, after which he had sent off El Katoom, with a strong guard, to the hill-fort of Tormas, on the southern slope of the Sierra Morena.
At the last words, Alured passed his hand over his eyes to hide the sudden gleam that lit them up; for this news had a meaning for him, of which neither the speaker nor even the shrewd emir had any idea.
That night, in his own chamber, the knight pondered this new and strange hope, and the plan that he had formed for his brother’s liberation.
In fact, the whole situation was now completely altered. What all his skill and courage could never have achieved, his foes had unconsciously done for him; and Hugo, no longer immured in the guarded walls of the Alhambra, was less than thirty miles from where he stood!
Nor was it hard for one so versed in all the wiles of Saracen war to guess why the king had taken a step so strangely at variance with his former jealous care of his valued slave. This sudden change had followed too close on the discovery of the marvellous likeness of that slave to the dreaded White Knight, not to suggest to the wary Englishman the existence of a plot for the using of this likeness to entrap himself, the Moors’ most redoubted foe!
Now came the question, how best to profit by this strange turn of fortune.