"Lord, lord!" cried Morgiana, suddenly falling on the pavement. "Do not listen! forget! forget! Put her from your heart! See! I embrace your knees, I kiss your feet. By Allah the Great and His prophet, I conjure you. She loves you not. I would die for you with a laugh on my lips. Oh, the heart of Zeyneb my brother is black, as his body misshapen! Death is woven for us all, if you continue this quest. Remember our love, our joy,—the little babe that died in Palermo. Have I ever deceived? If you remember Mary the Greek, I say it, 'Woe, woe for us all!'"
But the jinns of a headlong passion had mastery of Iftikhar that day. He saw Morgiana of Yemen at his feet; but he saw another—that had been before his eyes day and night since that hour in Palermo when Mary Kurkuas's lips had been so near his own.
"Eblees seize you, woman!" came from his throat; and he spurned her. Morgiana said not a word; without a groan she arose, and sat on the divan, looking upon him tearlessly. Iftikhar brattled forth a forced laugh. "Ya, Zeyneb, let us go back to Kerbogha. Your sister is all tears and foreboding to-day. We must not let her sit over the hemp again." And with that the two left the white court and returned to the liwan, where the Prince of Mosul awaited them. The two chiefs of the Ismaelians listened long to the tales Zeyneb had to tell of the assembling of the Franks. Then Iftikhar cried:—
"Glory to Allah! The fish drift into the net!"
"I do not understand, my lord," said the dwarf.
"I know these Christians," the chief replied. "Lions in battle, but beast-strength will not win Jerusalem. Under cover of destroying them, we can gather a mighty host, unsuspected by Barkyarok. When they are blotted out, we take the sultan and kalif unawares! The Most High delivers the empire into the hands of the Ismaelians. Is it not so, Kerbogha?"
And the prince called Allah to witness that their troubles were at an end; that three years should see them masters of all Islam. Only the dwarf shook his head, and when questioned, replied, "Lords, you are mighty men-of-war; yet this I say, 'You will fail.'"
"And wherefore?" came from Kerbogha.
"Because I have been among the Franks, and there is a fire burning in their hearts that a thousand leagues of deserts cannot blast, nor ten myriad sword-hands quench, nor all your Ismaelians' daggers."
"You, too, prate evil, like your cursed sister!" cried Iftikhar. Then he asked Zeyneb very carefully as to the route likely to be taken by the Crusaders, the time of their arrival in Asia, and the like. After that he sent for a certain Eybek, one of the trustiest and most skilful of the "devoted," and dismissed him with this last command:—