HOW MORGIANA WOUND HER LAST SPELL
Wrong had been done Iftikhar, when the Franks boasted he had fled headlong with Kerbogha and his coward atabegs. Had all his peers in the Moslem host fought as he, there might have been fewer Christian Glorias. Where death was thickest he had sought it. Under his cimeter had sped many a Frankish life. At the end he had led the final charge of his "devoted," maddest rider in all that headlong band. But doom had been against him; the Ismaelians had died where they could not conquer. Iftikhar, escaping fifty deaths, had thrown himself into a band of flying Turkomans, beseeching, threatening, adjuring, to make them turn for a last stand. One howl met his prayer.
"Fate is against us! Flee! Flee! Allah aids the Franks!"
He struck the fugitives with his cimeter; they fled more swiftly. He thrust his beast across their path; the good Arabian was nigh swept down in the vortex of the panic. Panic everywhere, the Franks flying after, each Christian a raging jinn whose joy was slaying.
Then at last Iftikhar knew he could do no more, and he turned the head of his wounded steed to ride on the Christian lances. But just as he was casting shield away, that death might light more quickly, the hand of a strange rider plucked his saddle rein, and before the grand prior could strike at the unknown, Zeyneb's voice sounded in his ears above the "Montjoye!" of the onrushing French:
"What, Cid? You ride to death?"
"Unhand!" thundered Iftikhar, "all is lost! I know how to die!"
But Zeyneb with a wondrous strength had tugged at the bits and swung the charger's head; and close by, the Egyptian saw another rider, unarmored, in a flowing dress,—but the face was turned from him.
"You are mad, lord!" cried Zeyneb. "Do not cast yourself away. Fate will change, Allah willing!"
Then, as Iftikhar struggled to turn, a squadron of flying Persian light horse struck them, and swept the three riders away perforce in its flight.