Iftikhar knelt beside the divan, and looked into her face.
"Life of my own!" said he, half passionately, "why sad? What is the desire? A palace—can any be more fair than El Halebah? Jewels, robes?—the riches of Aleppo are yours. Servants?—a hundred maids of Khorassan and Fars and Ind are your ministers, most beautiful of the daughters of men, save as you outshine. The pang? The wish? Your will is law to me, and to all the 'devoted' of Syria."
But Morgiana turned away her head.
"Lord," said she, half bitterly, "will palace, and riches, and slaves bind up a bruised heart? Is gold a cordial for the soul? Does the dagger say, 'I am sovereign physician'?"
"Riddles—" commented Iftikhar, still kneeling.
Morgiana flushed; there was a flash in her eyes now, but not of softness or delirium. "It is past," cried she, bending her henna-dyed hand across her brow, as if to drive away a vapor. "The vision is gone. But I see—O Iftikhar, whom I have loved,—soul of my soul,—what do I not see! I see your love for me, true, and pure, and strong, when you bought me and Zeyneb, my brother, at the slave market in Damascus. And when we were with you in Sicily, and you served amongst the Christians, what nest of the wood-thrush more joyous than our home at Palermo? As you won honor after honor, and Christian and Moslem lauded you, was your gladness greater than mine? Then came the day when you listened to the cursed envoys of Hassan Sabah, and sold yourself to this fiend's brotherhood, who live by the dagger of stealth, and not by the sword of manhood,—that was the first sorrow. And then—" she hesitated, but drove on, and her eyes flamed yet fiercer—"came that hour when the old Kurkuas and his daughter came to Palermo,—and you set eyes on her Greek beauty. I have seen her; she is fair, I own it—and your heart grew chill toward me. Me you left in the harem, with a few fawning, glozing words, and went about sighing, dreaming of the Greek; and my joy was at end. Almost, even then, you would have possessed her; but I was crafty beyond you and Zeyneb. Remember the hour in the Palace of the Diadem, when Musa the Spaniard saw you with your arms—"
"As Allah lives!" thundered Iftikhar, leaping up, "how knew you this? No more—witch, sorceress!"
"Rage as you will!" tossed forth Morgiana, throwing back her head; "it was I that warned Musa. Ah! you both are weak—weak, though you vaunt yourself so strong."
Iftikhar was foaming; his fury was terrible. But Morgiana never quivered. "So you fled Sicily after devising murder in vain. Then the deed at Cefalu—and that accursed child Eleanor still remains to drive me wild with her moans and her sorrow. Again this Zeyneb, worthy brother, returns from Frankland. He has failed. I saw Richard Longsword's form in the smoke, and the smoke shows only the living. But he and Mary Kurkuas will come,—come with the Frankish hordes,—and then! Woe to you and woe to me, if your heart remember her beauty!"
"And the smoke mist says true, fair sister," quoth Zeyneb, naught abashed. "Richard Longsword goes to Jerusalem, and with him Mary Kurkuas, wedded, though not yet truly his wife; so I heard from her own lips." And he darted a swift glance at his master.