‘I’ll not believe it, no, no, I’ll not believe it: damnable, bloody demons! When I had power I spared all, all but——ah, me! ah, me! why did I live?’
‘Thou dost forget thyself; I speak of that which was to have been, not of that which is to be. I have stepped in and communed with the conqueror. I have made terms.’
‘What are they, what can they be?’
‘Easy. To a philosopher like Alroy an idle ceremony.’
‘Be brief, be brief.’
‘Thou seest thy career is a great scandal to the Moslemin. I mark their weakness, and I have worked upon it. Thy mere defeat or death will not blot out the stain upon their standard and their faith. The public mind is wild with fantasies since Alroy rose. Men’s opinions flit to and fro with that fearful change that bodes no stable settlement of states. None know what to cling to, or where to place their trust. Creeds are doubted, authority disputed. They would gladly account for thy success by other than human means, yet must deny thy mission. There also is the fame of a fair and mighty Princess, a daughter of their Caliphs, which they would gladly clear. I mark all this, observe and work upon it. So, could we devise some means by which thy lingering followers could be for ever silenced, this great scandal fairly erased, and the public frame brought to a sounder and more tranquil pulse, why, they would concede much, much, very much.’
‘Thy meaning, not thy means, are evident.’
‘They are in thy power.’
‘In mine? ‘Tis a deep riddle. Pr’ythee solve it.’
‘Thou wilt be summoned at to-morrow’s noon before this Arslan. There in the presence of the assembled people who are now with him as much as they were with thee, thou wilt be accused of magic, and of intercourse with the infernal powers. Plead guilty.’