"I were unworthy of Mary Kurkuas if I yielded a hair! No power shall shake me! Let Christ pity them; I will not!"
Sebastian turned away.
"Dear Lord," he prayed, "Thou seest how my sweet son is torn by the fiends who seek his soul; first he forgets Jerusalem, now will dip his hands wantonly in Christian blood. Spare him; pity him; restore him to himself."
That night Richard sat at chess with Musa; played skilfully, laughed loud. His talk was merry, but his face was very hard.
CHAPTER XIII
HOW RICHARD SINNED AGAINST HEAVEN
Night was falling. There was a gray mist creeping over the mountain; the ash trees and beeches loomed to spectral size; the sky was thick with dun cloud-banks. But De Carnac, as he looked upward, muttered to Longsword in a bated whisper, "The clouds are less heavy; wait two hours—they will break and give us the moon."
"Hist, men!" Richard cautioned the band about him; "not yet; we must wait for darkness."
Long had they already waited,—those score of Saracens and fifty or more St. Julien men, lying in ambush behind the trees, north of the crag whereon perched the Valmont castle, the only side where an easy road led up to the outer rampart, within which still lowered the great keep. They had seen men go in and out, but none molested them in the safe shadow of the trees. Their hearts had leaped at the chirp of each cricket, the call of each wood-bird. The sounds died away; naught followed; each man listened to the beating in his own breast.