"Carry us safe, dear Rollo, for the love of Christ! The need is great!"
Iftikhar was breasting them, on a steed the pride of El Halebah's stables. The Ismaelian drew bow, and sent a shaft crashing against them. The leathern saddle-flap turned it, and Richard taunted: "Truly you love the Greek! Will you strike her?"
"Better dead than yours!" came back, and with it a second arrow, against Longsword's shoulder. He reeled, but the Valencia mail was not faithless. Tightening his grasp, Richard swung Mary so that his own body was between her and the Egyptian. He drew Trenchefer. Rollo needed no bridle. At touch of the knee, the beast swerved so suddenly that Iftikhar's mount was nigh over-ridden. Before the Egyptian could cast away the bow and draw, the Christian sword fell. The Ismaelian barely shunned it. Not so his horse; for the good sword cleft through the saddle and severed the spine. Iftikhar went down with his falling steed, while Rollo tossed out his heels and flew onward.
But a precious moment had sped, brief though the encounter. Almost as Iftikhar fell, the Ismaelian band closed upon his conqueror. The dawn was strengthening. Richard could see the foe about him—dark Syrians, white-robed, with crooked bows, cimeters, and brass-studded targets. They raised a mighty yell as they saw the prey they had tracked so long locked, seemingly, in their hands. A thousand marks Longsword would have pledged for his good target to cast behind Mary; but his own body was the living shield. No place this, to swing Trenchefer now. Speed, the speed of Rollo,—in that and in Our Lady he trusted.
"Bismillah! Glory to Allah! The Christian jinn is taken!" roared the foremost Ismaelians, with their screaming arrows. One shaft home, and Rollo was crippled. But he, great brute, was wiser than many men. He needed no word, no spur. Close to the ground, after his wont, he dropped his muzzle. Then when he felt the reins slack on his neck and Richard's fingers gently combing his mane, he struck out in a stretch no steed of Fars or Khorassan could outpace. Two bounds, it seemed, plucked him out of that circle of death; with the long way clear, and the press behind. Through eyes half opened, Mary saw hills, rocks, trees, speeding past under the pale light, as though runners in a race. They had left the green wood; were on the highroad, flying westward. Eastward, behind the howling pack, all the sky was bright, but not all the glow was from the dawning. A tower of fire was leaping toward heaven. All the groves were traced darkly against the red glare, but faded swiftly as Rollo thundered westward.
Arrows, or what she deemed arrows, were whistling past her head. There were a score of mad voices close behind: "Shoot! Slay! Strike the horse! The grand prior's houri! A great reward!"
Then more arrows; but it was nothing easy to send a shaft from a plunging saddle into the dimness, and strike a dragon flying as Rollo flew. She heard Iftikhar shout once more—the fall had not harmed him, for he was again mounted—"To every man a hundred dirhems, if you bring down the horse!"
Her fear had become overmastering now. She was frightened as a little child. Her face was very close to her husband's. Despite the pace, she spoke.
"Richard, do not forget. You have promised. Strike, before too late."
The other's answer was a glance behind into the half-light. Mother of Pity, how close the infidels were! Then he bent forward, and spoke to Rollo,—not in Greek, Arabic, or Provençal, but in his own Norman French.