"And was it so easy to do all this that I never dreamed it? that I marvelled to myself, 'Why is Musa so devoted, yet so true to Richard, my husband?'" asked Mary, with quivering lips. The breath of the Spaniard was coming still more slowly, but he answered, smiling: "After I had you utterly in my power—after the parting at Antioch—I swore a great oath I would never, save when dying, confess I saw you as other than a sister while Richard lived. It was hard; I was tempted; often the power of Eblees and his jinns was strong. But I fought them away with Allah's might. I have mastered, I have kept my vow. She is yours again, my brother, your own pure wife."
"Holy Mother," cried Mary, in her pain, "had I known this three days since, how would God have tortured me! God knows, while I never had an untrue thought touching Richard,"—and she looked fairly upon her husband,—"yet, Christian or Moslem, had Musa said the word, how would my breast have been torn!"
"Yes, and no shame," the Norman was interrupting, "for what I marvel at is this,—how you and Musa could look upon each other's face one day, and yet keep love for me."
But Musa whispered: "Leave the secret to Allah, Most High. I am near the ending now. You of the West have conquered. You have indeed wrung victory from very doom, your vow is cleared. The next Genoese ship bears you homeward to St. Julien, to the castle and the mountains of fair Auvergne. You will not forget, under that sweet French sky, the Spaniard, whose body lies beneath the dust of that Jerusalem he died to save, though all in vain?"
"Till they chant my death mass—never!" whispered Richard; but Mary made no reply. "It is a long way from El Kuds," Musa's pallid lips ran on, "to the orange groves and shining vegas, by the Guadalquiver and the Darro. But the pathway to the throne of Allah can be trodden while an arrow flies. Do not believe the priests, my brother, nor the imams of Islam, who say, 'only Christian,' 'only Moslem,' can meet before the Most High's face. Whether your Christ were Son of the Eternal or earth-sprung prophet, I know not. If to be true Christian is to wear the pure heart of Mary de St. Julien, then in truth the son of Mary the Virgin was the son of the All-Merciful. But this is hid. We shall meet—you, and you, and I—in some blessed spot where the word is 'love,' not 'war.'" His breath failed him; Mary took his head upon her lap and stroked his temples with her soft, white hands. Richard did not speak. Presently the Spaniard spoke again, a whisper, as of the far retreating wind:—
"Yes, I have been faithful to my love,—my brother,—my promise."
Mary glanced toward Richard, and he nodded gently. She bent over Musa and kissed him twice upon the lips. A smile broke upon the Spaniard's face. There came a faint sigh and a folding of the hands, as if to rest. Mary raised her head.
"He is not here," she whispered; and Richard answered softly, "Sweet wife, that was the fairest deed of all your life."
Just as the dawn was glowing, Richard stood before his tent on Olivet, and at his side Mary de St. Julien, his wife. It was very still, peaceful as a summer Sabbath of La Haye in far Provence. They clasped hands as they listened to a distant chant and singing. The priests were raising the matin hymn from the rock of Sion, where infidel muezzins had called on the single Allah for so many sinful years. They saw the east change from crimson to red fire, the redness brighten to golden flame; then all the ridge of Moab glowed in light, as on that morning when the host first stood before Jerusalem. The last mists crept from the hills—thin blue clouds that faded away in the burning azure. And last of all the sun mounted upward slowly, his glory trailing far, as though reluctant for his daily race. They saw coming from the city a company of priests, white-stoled, and bearing in their midst a bier, Sebastian going to that rest which shall know waking only at God's last trumpet.