They lifted incredulous heads, and found it was true. The shifting sands had stilled and the desert lay wrapped in its customary peace.
CHAPTER X
They were almost within sight of Alexandria before they found what they were seeking. Then, just at the last possible moment, they sighted a large cluster of the black tents of the Bedouins. "Await me here," said El Sareuk urgently. "I shall collogue with these men and see whether I cannot raise us an army." He galloped away to the encampment.
Shortly there was a bustle and stir therein, and many small energetic men of the Bedouin tribe came running toward the central tent, into which El Sareuk had vanished. The Bedouins were a cheerful and healthy lot, inured to hardship, habituated to a rough nomadic life. They were short and lean, and often looked fragile, but they were fiery, intractable fighters when aroused.
When some time had passed, Ramizail said, "He will win them. You'll see they'll be wild with desire to help us, and to avenge the soiled honor of Islam. That's the tack he's using—how Mufaddal has betrayed the dignity and integrity of the Moslem world by this fiendish trick of the pest ship, and how these Bedouins can expunge the stain by following us against his forces."
"Can you do soothsaying without the help of Mihrjan?" asked Godwin curiously. There was a great deal he did not know even yet about this strange tall child of Solomon's line.
"Oh, no. I'm just well acquainted with my uncle's ways of thinking and speaking and acting. I've seen him whip a crowd of assorted Saracens—Turks and Mamelukes and Arabs and Soldarii and Turcomans—into such a frenzy of fanatical zeal that they attacked a force nine times as large as their own, and cut it to ribbons. He's an old spell-binder."
And it turned out as she predicted, for quite soon El Sareuk came riding toward them at the head of a gang of horsemen, some half a hundred in all, waving their swords and bows over their heads. Godwin knew instinctively what to do. He rose in his stirrups and threw up his tremendous broadsword and howled in Arabic. "Death to all who defile the name and honor of Islam!" Although he was a good Christian knight this war-slogan did not seem inappropriate to him in the least; and it pleased and flattered the Bedouins no end, for El Sareuk had told them of this mighty-chested warrior who had dedicated himself to wrong-righting and oppression-ending, leaving the Crusade to travel for this purpose in company with an Arab prince and half-caste girl. They answered his hail with lusty yells and riding up to him and Ramizail they pressed upon them all manner of foods, roast lamb in palm leaves, legs of fowl, delicacies of every sort, goats' milk for Godwin and asses' milk for the woman. Greedily they ate and drank as they rode west, and finished the last crumb as they sighted the outskirts of Alexandria.
"We'll ride straight in," said Godwin, now grim and businesslike. "They're expecting us, so watch out for surprises. Their sorcerers have told them we're coming, I'll wager my left eye upon it. We'll find out which wharf the plague ship's moored to, and burn her to the water's edge. Then we'll seek out this Mufaddal swine, and pin him by his ears to an ant's nest!"