“Oh Hassan,” were the Caliph’s words, “to what would you liken the servant of God who destroyeth the heathen and obeyeth the Prophet?”
The poet salaamed, and touched with his lips a little charm that he wore at his neck on a silver chain.
“Oh Lion of God,” quoth he, stretching out his hands, “who shall dare to praise the great? Behold, have I not seen the sun in his strength roll back the mists out of the valleys and launch his chariots over the hills? The hearts of the holy hunger for battle, for the sound of the sword and the cry of the trumpet. To the sun would I liken the Lion of God, who giveth life to the children of men, even life in death, and in death paradise.”
Serjabil took a brooch from his red robe, a brooch set with precious stones, and cast it on the floor at Hassan’s feet.
“Oh son of the golden mouth,” he said, “God give ye joy of the true belief.”
Hassan bowed low and took the brooch.
“Methinks,” he cried, with his face afire, “that I see the black-eyed girls of heaven gazing upon us from their scented gardens.”
At a sign from Serjabil two black slaves brought a man in shackles from a neighbouring alcove. It was Thibaut the Apostate, a renegade priest, who had fled from Agravale over the mountains. He had received many wrongs at Jocelyn’s hands, and in his shame he had abjured the Cross, and turned Mohammedan to serve his ends.
Standing before Serjabil’s chair, with the huge Æthiopians towering above him, Thibaut told of the state of the Christian provinces, and of the turbulence and vanity that reigned therein. He told how Samson had arisen in the Seven Streams, and had spread his heresy among the people till the Pope had decreed a crusade against him and the barons of the south had marched to war. Thibaut described the lands north of the mountains as empty and ruinous, rotten with decay. The Cross had been carried against the Cross, so that the Christians had sapped each other’s strength. The Southern Marches, ay, and the Seven Streams, waited for the conqueror who should come with the sword.
When Thibaut had spoken, Serjabil arose and laid his hand on the open Koran.