"And why may not I bid you become Moslem and speed to Egypt?"
"Well that my faith is strong!" returned the Norman, bitterly. "But we must part—must part! Yet God has made you flesh of my flesh. We see love in each other's eyes. We hear each other's voices, and hear joy! Were we both of one faith, where we two were, there would be heaven! Yet, O Musa, we are sundered by a gulf wider than the sea!"
The friends had been pacing along the clearing without the castle; and now Musa thrust his arm around the shoulder of the mighty Norman, and the two strode on a long time silent. Then Richard continued:—
"Tell me, Musa, if you go to Egypt, and we Franks to Jerusalem, and it befalls that you have chance to fight in defence of the Holy City, will you embrace it? You are not a strait Moslem."
The Spaniard answered very slowly, his eyes on the ground:—
"What is written in the book of our dooms, that may no kalif shun. Says Al-Koran, 'The fate of every man, we have bound about his neck.' And again it says, 'No soul can die unless by the will of Allah, according to that which is written in the book containing the destinies of all things.' Therefore why ask me? The Most High knows what will befall, whether you Christians will have your will, and see your cross above the Holy City, or whether you will all be lying with the dead."
"Amen!" answered Richard, solemnly. "Only to the Christian there can be no doubt as to the will of God, unless, by the unworthiness of our sinful hearts, we are denied the boon of setting free the tomb of Our Lord. But, my kind brother, it is not of this that I would speak. I dread this parting from you. Think! here stand I, with many vassals to fear me, a few, like Herbert, to worship me; but—" and the strong voice was broken—"on all the wide earth there are but three that love me,—Sebastian, Mary Kurkuas, and you. And how may I lift eyes to Mary now? And you—you are to be taken away."
Musa only looked on the grass at his feet. Then he said sweetly:—
"Ah, my brother, though now we part, I do not think our friendship will have brought bitterness only. So long as we live we shall think each of the other as the half of one's own soul that has traversed away, but will in some bright future return. And who knows that your churchmen, and even our prophet (on whom be peace), are wrong alike? That every man and maid who has walked humbly in the sight of the Most High, and striven to do His will, will not be denied the joy hereafter? Do you think Allah is less compassionate than we, who have dwelt together these many days, and to whom our faith has been no barrier to pure love?"
Richard shook his head.