"'HOW MAY I LIFT EYES TO YOU WHEN I BELONG TO THE CAUSE OF CHRIST?'"
"Dear life," cried he, "do you know what you say? Peril, toil, hardships,—yes, death even, and worse than death,—captivity—all these may await! And is your little body strong enough for the long, long way to Jerusalem?"
"It is, Richard," said she, looking back into his face with a sweet, grave smile; "how I wish I could do something very great, only to show my love for you!"
He was bending over to snatch her in his arms; her hair was touching his cheek; when Mary shrank back with a frightened scream:—
"Richard!"
And before the other word could pass her lips, a strange misshapen form had darted from under the tree. A flash on bright steel, a cry, a stroke—but at that stroke Mary snatched at the wrist, caught, held an instant.
"The jinns curse you!" the hiss, and Mary felt the wrist whisk like air from her hands. Another stroke, Richard half reeled. There was the click of steel on steel. A second curse, and the assailant ghost-like was gliding amongst the orchard trees. Longsword was still staring, trembling, reaching for Trenchefer; but Mary gave a loud cry. And at that cry, lo! Musa was swinging from his saddle, and grasping in no gentle grip the cloak of the dwarf Zeyneb.