"When they return, bid him come this way."
The man bowed and slipped noiselessly away, while the host, having first tasted each dish on the table, urged his guest to eat. He had no need to repeat the bidding. Olvir's youth and health would have given relish to the plainest fare, and the mutton stew was very savory. When the last drop of gravy had been sopped up, Olvir turned with good-will to the dates and candied fruit, which the sheik was attacking with the zest of an Oriental. Hearty, however, as was the younger man's appetite, his palate, unaccustomed to such confections, soon cloyed with their spicy sweetness. Al Arabi gravely shook his head at this sign of foreign taste, and then he smiled in recollection of the past.
"It is clear that you were not raised in the land of the faithful, son of my daughter," he observed. "You lack the sweet tooth."
"I will not turn from honey in the comb; but these sweets--"
"The spices of the Far East. You will in time become used to their flavor," explained the sheik, and he held up a slice of candied pomegranate between thumb and finger. But the sweetmeat did not reach his mouth. Struck by a sudden thought, he dropped the titbit to clutch Olvir's shoulder. His eyes were ablaze with intense feeling.
"Hei, by the Prophet's Beard, you shall in truth learn the taste of Moslem sweets! Who is Kasim, that he should stand first with the Beni Al Abbas? My word is yet weightiest in the council of the sheiks. When this lion of the Afranj has broken the might of that dog Abd-er-Rahman, my daughter's son--my daughter's son shall be Emir of Andalus!"
Olvir's cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkled at the alluring prospect; but his clear intellect was quick to perceive the wildness of the scheme.
"Hearken a little, father of my mother," He said. "I give thanks for the good thought; but how can such be? Did Allah uprear me a kaffir, that I might rule over the faithful?"
"The mission of Islam is to bring unbelievers into the faith."
"I hold to no faith but my own. No priest or prophet shall set the bounds of my thought. I see much good in the words of the Son of Mary; but little has Mohammed added to them. I believe that God is in all men alike, and that each man is good, not according as he is Moslem or Jew, Christian or heathen, but as he does in his deeds the will of the Spirit within him. But enough! I give you pain."