"I have come to save you, my Cid," answered she.
"To save me?" burst from the Egyptian. "To save me? To drag down to Gehenna rather; to speed me to endless torture!"
She turned her face away. "Not that," she pleaded, "not that. Have I not loved you, and been ever faithful?"
He sprang at her, caught her by the throat.
"You have indeed loved me! Hearken: through your love for me you strengthened the Greek to resist me; through your love for me you saved Richard and his comrades, and plucked the Greek from me; through your love the accursed Norman and Duke Godfrey were able to escape, to warn their army, when ready to drop unresisting into the net spread by Kerbogha. This siege, this battle, this loss of myriads, is your handiwork; is yours,—and for it you shall die. Would to Allah I had killed you long ago!"
He had drawn his cimeter, and brandished above her. She raised her eyes and looked at him unflinching.
"Wallah!" cried he, wavering, "there is magic in your eyes. The sheytans aid you! Yet you shall die!"
Morgiana's face was not pale now; all the blood had returned; her eyes were brighter than red coals. She wrested her neck from his grasp, and caught his sword-hand, held it fast, with a strange, giant-like strength that frighted him.
"Strike!" cried she; "but as Allah lives and judges, first hear. Where are your twelve thousand? I have seen them all dead. Your hopes of power? Sped to the upper air. And the Greek? Allah knoweth. All these lost, but not I. No, by the All-Great you shall not strike until you hear me; for I am strong—stronger than you. I have been cursed, but have not replied; been hated, but paid in love; been wronged, but remained faithful. Now hope goes to ruin; war, love, friends,—all is lost,—saving I. But me you shall not lose. Either on earth you shall keep me near, to joy in your joys, to sorrow in your sorrows; or dying, my spirit shall be yet closer, to follow your path in heaven, earth, or hell—bittering every sweet, trebling every woe, haunting, goading, torturing, until you curse tenfold the hour you forgot the love of Morgiana, maid of Yemen!"
And when Morgiana had spoken, she cast Iftikhar's hand from her, and bowed her head, as if waiting the stroke. But the Ismaelian's arm had fallen. He stood as in a trance, for before his storm-driven soul passed the vision of that Morgiana of other days, before the babe died and he set eyes on the Greek,—those days when he boasted he asked no Paradise, for the kiss of the fairest houri was already his. His sword-arm trembled. The woman said not a word, but raised her eyes again, not burning, but mild and tender he saw them now, lit with soft radiance in the dim moonlight. He felt the mad fury chained as by some resistless spell. Presently he spoke, the words dragged as it were from the depths of his soul:—