"No more; I leave you to my Lord Iftikhar. Enough, you know it was I—I, Zeyneb the dwarf, the hunchback—who discovered the wiles of Musa the great cavalier; who led him and his two valiant Frankish comrades into my master's power. And remember, Cid Richard, the word on the wall at La Haye: 'Three times is not four. There is a dagger that may pierce armor of Andalus.'" A third salaam, then, "The mercy of Allah be with you; my lord will tell how many moments are left in which to rain curses on your poor slave Zeyneb."
Musa shrugged his shoulders, a gesture more eloquent than any he could make with his hands.
"And think not," he answered still sweetly, "my friends or I have breath or wind to waste cursing such as you. I thank your courtesy; we shall never meet again to requite it."
"Never?" queried Zeyneb, cocking his evil head. "Not on the Judgment Day when, says Al Koran, 'Allah shall gather all men together, and they shall recognize one another'?"
The Spaniard cut him short.
"Fly! Think not the All Just will so much as raise again your soul, even to plunge it into the hell where wait garments of fire. Soul you have not, unless base vermin have. When they rise from the dead, so will you—no sooner!"
Zeyneb would have ventured reply, but Iftikhar pointed down a passage. The dwarf vanished instantly. Musa spat after him. "Purer air, now his stench is not by!" his comment.
Iftikhar, who had been silent, turned to his captives.
"My lords," said he, gravely, speaking Provençal, "we meet again at last, as I have long desired."
"You are wrong, my emir," interrupted Longsword. "At Dorylæum I sought you long and vainly."