Most captains of that iron age would have gone straight to the idea of capturing the fort and Hugo himself by a sudden dash; but not so the wary Alured. He knew that Tormas was strong both by nature and art, well garrisoned, and commanded by a veteran second only to El Zagal himself in border warfare. Stratagem, not force, was needed here; and he at once set himself to devise a counter-plot.
In this attempt, the very next day brought him aid from an unlooked-for quarter. A second Moorish courier arrived with the king’s offer to exchange El Zagal for a brave Spanish knight named Don Alvar de Perez, who had been his prisoner for some time, being too poor to pay the high ransom demanded.
Here was a chance which Alured was not one to let slip. Don Alvar, of whose courage and sagacity he had often heard, and who had been long enough among the Moors to know them well, was the very helper he needed to countermine the king’s subtle device. He at once agreed to the proposal, and then, to throw his enemies off their guard, spread a report that he was unable to undertake any military operations at present, confirming it by keeping his men carefully within the fortress. This he could do with a clear conscience, the Moors being so cowed by their recent defeat, the fall of so many of their best warriors, and El Zagal’s capture, that they made not a single foray during the whole of that month.
This inaction was a sore trial to De Claremont’s fierce and restless followers; but he himself felt it more keenly than any of them.
The shock of this sudden discovery that the remorse which had blasted his life was groundless, and the brother he thought he had slain still alive, and within reach, had shaken his strong nerves fairly off their balance; and he was ceaselessly tortured with nervous and almost childish fears, which (however ashamed of them) he tried in vain to throw off. Hugo would die ere they met—the Moors would drag him back to slavery—he himself would be struck down by war or sickness just as his plans were ripe—his foes would surprise the fortress entrusted to his care, and carry him off to the same bondage as his ill-fated brother.
Day after day, the troubled man paced the ramparts with the fierce unrest of a caged beast of prey, straining his eyes southward in the vain hope of seeing another Moorish courier appear over the dark hilltop. Night after night, he started from feverish dreams of struggling in the grasp of the victorious Moors, or, worse still, finding himself arrayed in turban and caftan, and ranked among the sworn foes of the Cross. El Zagal naturally supposed the terrible White Knight to be pining for fresh battles, and wondered what secret cause doomed him to this galling inaction; and Alured’s rough soldiers, knowing nothing of the truth, began to mutter that he must be bewitched!
At last, just as he began to despair of any further answer, and to fear some new and darker plot of his foes, he saw one evening a single Moor riding swiftly over the hills from the direction of his brother’s prison at Tormas.
This man bore a letter to De Claremont from the commandant of Tormas, Ali Atar, who invited the “great Christian chief,” with many florid Eastern compliments, to visit him there as an honoured guest, and settle the proposed exchange of prisoners, Don Alvar having just been sent from Grenada to Tormas to be exchanged for the emir.
This, coupled with what he already knew or guessed, seemed to Alured a polite invitation to come and be killed or made prisoner. But he was not to be so easily caught; nor did he take long to devise a plan for foiling his wily foes with their own weapons.
“Effendi (master), here is a Christian knight from Santa Fé, who would speak with thee.”