The page started—In an instant, the steps were heard in the passage, followed by a heavy sound, as of a man falling upon the floor.
"Oh God! my father! my poor father!" cried Jacinto, springing to the door.
He was arrested by the arm of the neophyte, who plainly distinguished, along with the groans that came from the passage, a noise as if the sufferer were struggling to his feet; and in a moment after, as he pushed aside the curtain, to go out himself, the slave Ayub, covered with blood, rushed by him into the apartment, and again fell prostrate.
"My father, Ayub! my father?" cried the page, kneeling at his side.
"Allah il Allah! praised be God, for now I am safe!" said the Morisco, raising on his arm, and, though his whole frame shook as in the ague of death, regarding the pair with the greatest exultation. "I thought they had shot me through the liver with a bullet; but Allah be praised! 'twas naught but an arrow. Help me up, noble señor—Eh? ay? Trim the taper a little, and give me a morsel of drink."
"Thou sayest naught of my father, Ayub?" said Jacinto, eagerly and yet with mortal fear,—for he knew by the gesture of Don Amador, as he ceased his unavailing attempt to lift the wounded man, but more by the countenance of Ayub himself, that he was a dying man.
"How can I speak without light?" cried the Moor, with a sort of chuckle. "Trim the torch, trim the torch, and let me see where these boltheads be rankling.—Praise be to Allah, for I thought myself a dead man!"
"Wilt thou not speak to me of my father?" exclaimed Jacinto, in agony.
"A brave night! a brave night!" muttered Ayub, fumbling at his garments—"Valiant unbelievers!—Praised be God—The Wali——"
"Ay, the Wali! the Wali, thy master!" cried Jacinto, his voice dwindling to a hoarse and terrified whisper;—"my father, thy master, Ayub?"