"Hei! you speak in a strange tongue, son of Gulnare. Yet the tongue can be bridled. You believe in the One God. For the rest, there need be--"
"Stay, father. What is the creed of Islam, which the proselyte must cry aloud? No; it cannot be. Even my hair would betray me."
"Bismillah! The All-powerful One will disclose his decrees in due time. If yours is the Afranj hair, is not Abd-er-Rahman's the Afranj eye? 'Blue of eye, and foul of face,' the saying is against the Omyyad; but there is nothing in men's mouths against hair of golden flame. We shall see what Allah has decreed. Now tell me how you come here to the host of the Sultan Karolah; tell me of my Gulnare, and of your life in the frozen North."
Olvir bowed; but he had hardly made a beginning of the tale of how Thorbiorn Viking brought home his elf bride from the Land of the Asiamen, when he was interrupted by the sound of quick hoof-beats, and a score of beautiful horses, wine-red in color, came crowding around the front of the tent. As Olvir stopped short with a cry of delight, Al Arabi smiled and lifted his hand. A mare at once pushed from among her companions and advanced quietly into the tent, the tip of her flowing tail brushing the costly rugs, upon which she planted her small hoofs with the daintiness of a woman. Al Arabi held out for her a stoned date, and as she nibbled at it he stroked her bony cheek.
"So, Zora," he said, "you must have your sweetmeats, like all women. But I do not begrudge them to my swift one. You look at the guest, daughter of Rustem. It is well. He is not such a one as these Afranj jinn, who must get them to battle or the chase on ox-like steeds. No, Wind-racer; this is one with whom you could course the gazelle from dawn even to sunset. Look closely at the young man, for he is of the Household,--he is the Heir."
Zora stretched out her graceful neck to nuzzle the Heir's strange attire with the tip of her projecting lip. The attention was appreciated at its full value. Never before had Olvir seen the like of this beautiful mare, and her friendliness greatly pleased him. He was stroking the broad forehead between her soft black eyes when the younger Saracen envoy entered the tent.
Kasim did not wait to examine the guest, but perceiving at the first glance that the stranger's dress was not of Saracen fashion, he exclaimed petulantly: "How now, father of my bride; has your dowar become a lounging-place for kaffirs? I did not look to find you breaking bread with an Afranj dog."
Great was the vali's surprise when the despised kaffir answered him in his own tongue: "Friend, what says the wise king, the emir's namesake?--'Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is accounted wise; and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.'"
Though not a little humiliated by the apt rebuke, Kasim advanced closer to examine the guest with his blinking gaze. If his thought was to strike fear into the heart of the stranger by the fierceness of his look, he was never so mistaken. Olvir met him with a gaze so steady and so full of calm indifference that the Saracen, to cover the sudden confusion which fell upon him, shifted his glance to the stranger's dress.
The body armor of the guest was familiar to his sight; for only in its rich finish and in the threefold thickness of its mesh did it differ from his own. Yet it had an odd appearance, worn with the cross-thonged stockings, close breeches, and fur-trimmed cloak of the Norse dress. And, notwithstanding the ruddy yellow hair of the son of Gulnare, never had Kasim Ibn Yusuf seen a warrior who in figure, face, and bearing so nearly approached the Arab ideal of princeliness and beauty.