"Ah, Sir Musa!" cried Mary, still faint and weak, "God requite you. I offer you all I have, except love—and could I give that, it were mean repayment."
Musa's plumes almost brushed the pavement as he again saluted.
"I may not tell how I learned of this plot. I was warned secretly by a strange Arabian woman, who required of me solemn oath not to reveal her. To her, owe the thanks! But my mistress's words are more precious than as if each syllable were treasures of gold; the praise, flashed from her eyes, beyond gems; her voice sweeter than all the nightingales of Khorassan. I am well repaid."
He, too, departed. Mary stood long clinging to the pillar, now shivering, now laughing. What had she not escaped? When might she forget the unholy desire on the emir's face when he departed? Had he indeed forsaken his passion for her forever?
"St. Theodore," she cried with a sad, wild laugh, "I am cursed with too much love!"
Then she went to her father.
CHAPTER IX
HOW TRENCHEFER DROVE HOME
November sixth; feast of St. Leonard, the warrior hermit; third hour of the morning. In the monastery church the monks were chanting "terce" to an empty nave. When the muezzins climbed their minarets to bid all Moslems "come to prayer," few heard. Mary Kurkuas sat in the pavilion of Countess Adelaide, viewing the lists and wondering if even the vision of the Golden Horn and Constantinople might be more fair. The lists were set in the broad plain betwixt the city and Monte Pellegrino, the loftier western height of Castellaccio and Monte Cuccio. All about lay the matchless country—Palermo, its masses of white buildings crowned with gilded minarets; the blooming "Golden Shell" a sea of olive trees, palm, fig, orange, running down to that other sea of emerald; and in the background rocks of saffron topped by the broken peaks beyond.