God Wills It! Part 71

For an instant not a word pa.s.sed. Then Iftikhar spoke: "Morgiana, surely Eblees will gain you at last, since he sends you here." His voice was shaking with towering pa.s.sion.

"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 G.o.dfrey 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 h.e.l.l--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 pa.s.sed 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:--

"Some jinn is aiding you! Live then this once. I shall be cursed again for sparing."

Morgiana's only answer was to kneel and kiss his feet. Then she rose and stood with bent head and folded arms waiting his wishes. But Zeyneb had flitted between.

"Cid," he said abruptly, "there are hors.e.m.e.n approaching, very likely Christians; the gallop is that of heavy northern horses. Let us ride."

"Ride?" asked the dazed Iftikhar, "whither?" And he looked at Morgiana. His iron will was broken; he was content to let her lead him. She had already remounted.

"Toward Emesa, my Cid," she said directly.

"And what is there?" asked he, still dazed.

"The road to Egypt. You have still a name and a fame. All is not lost while Allah gives life. You are still young. The Egyptian kalif will rejoice to welcome such a warrior to his service."

"_Mashallah!_" cried Iftikhar, raising his hands, "when did you devise all this for me?"

"Many days since, lord. For in the hemp smoke it was written Kerbogha and the 'devoted' should fail."

"And you have been hidden at El Halebah?"

"No," she replied, "I have been closer than you dreamed, in your tents before Antioch, concealed by Zeyneb, to be near you when the need should be great. When the Christians stormed the camp I was taken by Duke G.o.dfrey. In grat.i.tude he set me free, and gave me a horse. I found Zeyneb and followed after you, that you might not cast your life away."

He went up to her as she sat on the saddle, put his arms about her, kissed her many times. And upon that Syrian hillside, under the stars, Morgiana found her moment of Paradise. He said nothing; but the Arabian laughed as she looked up at the sky.

"Praised be Allah, All-merciful," she cried. "The old is sped, the new is waiting. Mary the Greek is gone--will be forgotten. May I never hear word of her again!"

"I have been blind to the love of this woman," muttered Iftikhar, bounding into the saddle; "I have been blind, and Heaven restores sight. Yet if Mary the Greek is to be forgotten, may she never again cross my path. But this is left to Allah."

CHAPTER XLIII

HOW THE ARMY SAW JERUSALEM

Of the weary days pa.s.sed by Richard Longsword while his wound was healing, of how Sebastian and Herbert bled him, poulticed him with poppy leaves, and physicked him with sage, there is no time to tell.

Neither is there s.p.a.ce to relate the lesser misfortunes that befell the Crusaders, after the greatest misfortune at the hands of Kerbogha had been escaped through Heaven's mercy. For in the days that the army waited in Antioch a great plague fell upon it, which swept away all the weak and aged the famine had spared. Chief amongst those taken was Bishop Adhemar, who was not permitted in this mortal body to see the triumph of the cause he loved so well. There were quarrels and desertions amongst the chiefs. Hugh of Vermandois went away to Constantinople and returned no more. Raymond of Toulouse, and Bohemond, who took Antioch for his own princ.i.p.ality, were at strife unceasing,--once pa.s.sing the lie before the very altar. Thus the season was wasted, and the host frittered away its time around Antioch. Richard recovered and grew mightily impatient. To Jerusalem he must go, or the blood of Gilbert de Valmont must rest upon his soul. Long since the desire of knightly adventure had been fully sated. But his northern determination was unshaken as ever. His heart was always running ahead of the loitering host. To sweeten his delay, a letter had come through a Jew merchant from Tyre. Musa's tale had been received in Kerbogha's camp; he had been kindly entreated, but he had at once obtained transport to Tyre, whence he expected a s.h.i.+p for Egypt. Mary was well. In Egypt she would await the end of the war.

Then, however Allah might rule the issue, Richard would be free to return homeward, and could receive back Mary safe and spotless from his brother's care.

So Richard took courage, and counted the days till once more he could see the pleasant hills of Auvergne, the teeming valley; and dreamed of the hours when he would sit in the castle halls, with Mary at his side, and how they would fleet the days under the ancient trees beside the green-banked fosse, forever, forever. But those blessed days could not come till the Holy City was ransomed; and no spirit was gladder than Longsword's when the host started southward in the long-awaited springtime.

At last the army had begun its final march, not an emir drawing sword against it; for the fear of Frankish valor had spread over all Islam.

None of the host had desire for besieging any city save Jerusalem, and when they sat down before Archas they met only discomfiture. But while before Archas, Peter Barthelmy, puffed with pride, vowed he would silence those who ventured--after safe lapse of time--to doubt the miracle of the holy lance. Waxing confident, and boasting new visions from St. Andrew, he offered himself for the ordeal. In the presence of the whole host he pa.s.sed down a lane of blazing f.a.gots. None denied that he left the flames alive; but a few days later he was dead.

"Impostor," cried the Northern French, who said the fire smote him, as being a deceiver. But the Provencals called him a martyr, having pa.s.sed through the flames unhurt, but trampled down by his enemies in the throng when he came forth from the fire. As for Sebastian, he would only c.o.c.k one eye, when asked of the miracle of the lance, and keep silence. Once Theroulde said to his face:--

"Father, were you a sinful man, I should say you were itching to peddle forth a good story."

But the story Sebastian never told.

Soon enough poor Barthelmy's fate was forgotten. For the host was now treading a soil made sacred by the steps of prophets and apostles and holy men of old. The Franks forgot weary feet, the long journey and all its pains, when the march wound under the rocky spurs of Lebanon, and by the green Sidonian country. From Tyre they saw the blue sea, behind whose distant sky-line they knew beloved France was lying. They traversed the plain of Acre, climbed Carmel's towering crest. And now the swiftest marching seemed feeble. Jerusalem was nigh--Jerusalem, the city of G.o.d, goal of every hope, for whose deliverance myriads had laid down their lives. The toilsome way through Illyria, the pa.s.sage-at-arms at Dorylaeum, the march of agony through "Burning Phrygia," the starving, the death grapple in battle, and the pestilence at Antioch--all forgotten now! "G.o.d wills it! To Jerusalem!" was the cry that made the eager steps press onward from sun to sun; and men found the summer nights too long that held them back. A strange ecstasy possessed the army. Without warning whole companies would break out into singing, clas.h.i.+ng their arms and running forward with holy gladness.

"G.o.d is with us! The saints are with us! Jerusalem is at hand!" was the shout that flew from lip to lip, as the host pa.s.sed Sharon, and prepared to strike off from the coast road for the final burst of speed across the Judean plains to the Holy City. Richard rode on, as in an unearthly dream. Half he thought to see legions of angels and h.o.a.ry prophets rise from behind each hilltop. When he set eyes on a great boulder, a thrill pa.s.sed at the thought, "Jesus Christ doubtless has looked on this." Almost sacrilege it was for Rollo to pound the dusty road; blessed dust--had it not felt the mortal tread of fifty holy ones, now reigning in eternal light?

So the march hastened. When the dusty columns tramped through Lydda, every man beat his breast, and said his _Pater noster_, in memory of St. George the warrior, who there had won his martyr's crown. At Ramla they halted to adore the very ground where Samuel the Prophet of G.o.d had been born.

And now at the end of a day's march they were only sixteen short miles from Jerusalem, and the leaders held a council. For some who even to the last were faint-hearted wished to march past Jerusalem and strike Egypt, since it was said water and provisions were failing about the Holy City. But G.o.dfrey, standing in the a.s.sembly, said after his pure, trustful manner:--

"We came to Palestine, not to smite the Egyptian kalif, but to free the tomb of Christ. Bitterly reduced as we are in numbers, let us only go straight on. Will G.o.d, who plucked us out of the clutch of Kilidge Arslan and Kerbogha, suffer us to fail at the last? Up tents!

weariness, away! and forward this very night!"

Then all the braver spirits cried with one voice: "We will not fail!

G.o.d wills it!" So the order spread through the camp, though hardly yet pitched, to march forward at speed; and when the army heard it they blessed G.o.d, and each man strode his swiftest to be the first to set eyes on Jerusalem.

It was the evening of the ninth of June in the year of grace one thousand and ninety-nine; three years and a half since the great cry had swelled around Urban at Clermont, that the Christian army set out for this last march to the Holy City. The Christian army--alas! not the army that had ridden forth from France,--that had arrayed itself so splendidly on the plains of Nicaea! For of the hundred thousands, there were scarce fifty thousand left; and of these, twelve thousand alone were in full state for battle. The bones of the martyrs lined the long road from the Bosphorus to Judea. Many had fallen behind, sick; many had turned back craven. But the head of an army dies hardest; of the twelve thousand warriors that p.r.i.c.ked their weary steeds across the arid Syrian land, not one but was a man of iron with a soul of steel. Bohemond and Hugh and Stephen of Blois had deserted; but Robert the Norman was there, with Raymond of Toulouse, Tancred, and G.o.dfrey, bravest of the brave.

A little after nightfall they struck camp, with the bright eastern stars twinkling above them. As they marched, they saw before them all the plains and mountains ablaze, where the commandant of Jerusalem was burning the outlying villages, to desolate the country against their coming. Richard Longsword, who rode with Tancred and a picked corps sent ahead to seize Bethlehem, heard the tales of the despairing native Christians who came straggling in to greet their deliverers.

They blessed the saints in their uncouth Syriac for the help they had awaited so long, and bade the Franks be speedy with vengeance; for the Egyptian governor was breathing out cruelty against the servants of Christ.

"And who may this commandant be?" demanded the Norman of an old peasant who spoke a little Greek.

"Iftikhar Eddauleh, once of the cursed Ismaelians, lord," answered the fugitive, whimpering when he glanced toward his blazing vineyard. "Oh!

press on, for the love of Christ! The Egyptians have driven my son and my daughter like sheep inside of Jerusalem, to hold as hostages. They say that the emir even threatens to destroy the tomb of Our Lord in his mad ragings!"

Richard thundered out a terrible oath.