"No."
"What was the name of the boy?"
"Ugo."
"Well—in thy ear now—thou didst not well in shutting me out—I am that Ugo."
Thereupon the Emir walked resolutely away.
A cry, shrill and broken, overtook him, issuing apparently from the door of the chapel—a second time he heard it, more a moan than a shriek—and thinking the linkman had given the alarm, he quickened his pace to a run, and was soon out on the beach.
The breath of the sea was pleasant and assuring, and falling into a walk, he turned his face toward Brindisi. But the cry pursued him. He imagined the scene in the chapel—the distress of the Countess—the breaking up of the service—the hurry of question—a consultation, and possibly search for him. Every person in the procession but the Countess had seen him; so the only open point in the affair was the one of directest interest to her: Was it her son?
Undoubtedly the suffering lady would not rest until investigation was exhausted. Failing to find the stranger about the castle, horsemen might be sent out on the road. There is terrible energy in mother-love. These reflections stimulated the Emir to haste. Sometimes he even ran; only at the shrine of the Virgin and Child in the angle of the road did he halt. There he cast himself upon the friendly slab to recover breath.
All this of course indicated a preference for Mahommed. And now he came to a decision. He would proceed with the duty assigned him by the young master; then, at the end, he would come back, and assert himself in his native land.
He sat on the slab an hour or more. At intervals the outcry, which he doubted not was his mother's, rang in his ears, and every time he heard it, conscience attacked him with its whip of countless stings. Why subject her to more misery? For what other outcome could there be to the ceaseless contention of fears and hopes now hers? Oh, if she had only seen him when he was so near her in the road! That she did not, was the will of Allah, and the fatalistic Mohammedan teaching brought him a measure of comfort. In further sooth, he had found a location and a title. Thenceforward, and not fictitiously, he was the Count Corti; and so entitling himself, he determined to make Brindisi, and take ship for Genoa or Venice in the morning before a messenger could arrive from the castle.