"Thor smite me!" gasped Liutrad. "Zora!--he rides Zora!"
"It is a taunt," croaked Floki. "None but a fated man would venture such a deed. Let me drive an arrow through his hide, and the mare is yours again, ring-breaker."
Olvir was white with anger; but he shook his head.
"No," he lisped; "he bears a peace-branch,--he is a herald, and peace-holy,--the foul poisoner!"
"May Hel's hand soon grip him!" growled Floki; and then all three stood silent, glaring down on the approaching rider.
As he came within speaking distance, the Moslem peered up at the Norse chiefs, and waved his green branch in mocking salute.
"Greeting, kinsman!" he called. "I have returned to my city with a few friends, and so I am here to beg your hospitality for the night. Come down, I pray you, and join us in the market-place. What! you are silent? Is it thus you greet a guest? How speaks the Koran: 'For the weary guest, food and a bed; for the stranger in your gates, a wife and the queen of your drove.' Already you have made gift of the choice mare. The groom who brought her you will find, arrow-pierced, beyond the hill. He rode heedless into our very midst. I have besought you for food and shelter; for wife, I might name that fair houri who rode with Karolah's daughter--"
"Stay a little, dog," lisped Olvir, in a voice ominously gentle. "First, tell me whether you come as envoy."
The vali raised his branch, and answered jeeringly: "I, Kasim Ibn Yusuf, envoy of the Beni Al Abbas, come riding from Saragossa, to tell you how I have outwitted the great Karolah and ridden over his camp."
"That is a lie, adder!"