Longsword in turn threw back his head.
"Nor do I ask it. We owe each other—nothing. Go!"
And Iftikhar foamed out of the room, gone as suddenly as he had entered. There was silence for a moment.
"My friends," said Richard, "let us make haste. Shall we not fly?" Morgiana laughed, as so often, very scornfully.
"Verily you Franks are fools. Do you say 'go'? Are you angels with swords of fire, that you can blast ten thousand? Hark! fifty approach the door by which we entered! All the Ismaelians about El Halebah are alarmed. Iftikhar boasts well; we are soon hewn in pieces."
There was indeed a din, hundreds of voices, many torches shaking and flitting about the groves, and coming nearer, dogs barking, armor clanging. The whole cantonment of the Ismaelians was astir to avenge the violation of the palace. Musa had bowed his head.
"Alas! dear brother," said he, after his gentle manner, "clearly Allah has written our dooms! We pass from death to death. But we can now die sword in hand!"
Then Richard held up Trenchefer, so that the reddened blade glittered in the lamplight.
"This is no time to die!" cried he; "let others die! Let us do the deeds God has appointed. The life of my wife, the safety of the army of Christ, are at stake, and with Our Lord's help we shall make our boast over Iftikhar!"
The others looked at him. For the first time Mary saw that mad fire in his eyes which once burned the hour when he wrested triumph from death at Valmont—a thing terrible to see, but Mary did not quail. In a strange way the sight of him told her they were then not to die; for a prophet stood before her, a prophet whose evangel would be given that night with steel.