Treachery
Only for a moment did this weakness master the cool and resolute
Englishman, whose self-command was instantly restored by the
recollection that the least imprudence on his part, before these
watchful and merciless foes, would be fatal both to himself and to him
whom he came to save.
But how was he to reveal himself to his brother, without risking an
outburst of emotion that would betray them both?
A moment’s thought told him what to do; and with a well-feigned start
of surprise, he cast a fierce look at Hugo, and, lifting his clenched
hand, cried in English, in the tone of one hurling a threat at an
enemy—
“Hugo de Claremont, do you know your brother Alured?”
That Hugo did so, was clear from the start of amazement, and the sudden
paleness of his sun-browned face. But, mindful of the peril of
betraying any emotion before these keen and suspicious watchers, he
controlled himself with a mighty effort, and, retorting Alured’s stern
look, said with equally well-assumed defiance—
“Thank God, my brother, that I see you once more!”
“What means this, El Katoom?” cried Ali Atar, who had watched this
strange scene in silent wonder. “Wherefore eyest thou yon infidel so
fiercely? and why did he threaten thee but now?”
“Valiant sheikh,” replied Hugo, frowning like one enraged beyond all
patience, “when I last met this man, we stood sword-point to
sword-point: and I little thought to meet him here.”
This, though literally true, imposed on the wily Saracen more
completely than the most artful falsehood. If these two were mortal
foes, and had last met in deadly fight, there could be no risk of
collusion between them; and his suspicions vanished at once.
The sheikh now conveyed to Alured his views on the proposed exchange of
prisoners, which Hugo translated sentence by sentence; but under cover
of this game of question and answer, the brothers were able to exchange
confidences unsuspected.
Alured told Hugo of his identity with the famous “White Knight,” his
position as commandant of Santa Fé, and his resolution to effect his
brother’s escape. Hugo, in turn, told briefly how, awaking from his
swoon after the fatal combat, he found himself on a Spanish privateer,
which was taken soon after by a Barbary corsair. In the fight, he
received a new wound that all but cost him his life; but the admiration
of the Moors for his prowess saved him from the doom of his companions,
and at the court of Grenada he had been kindly treated, though strictly
guarded, till the Moorish king’s plan of using him to entrap the
dreaded White Knight caused his removal to Tormas.
At this point Ali Atar, having said his say, broke up the conference
and dismissed his interpreter; and as Hugo turned to quit the hall, his
brother had just time to warn him that any man who should say to him,
“Beware of the White Knight!” was the chosen agent of his escape, and
to be trusted accordingly.
But the wily sheikh, though no longer suspecting this Christian envoy,
was far too wary to let him spend a whole night at large in the castle,
and learn the strength of its defences and its garrison. As soon as
Alured had partaken of some food, he was escorted out of the fort by
the commandant’s black guards (who were indeed such in a double sense)
without being allowed even to see the Spanish prisoner for whose
release he was treating; and Ali Atar chuckled grimly at his success in
“outwitting the unbeliever,” little dreaming how signally the
unbeliever had just outwitted him.
A few days later, a small party of Moors from Tormas, and a detachment
of equal number from the garrison of Santa Fé, met midway between the
two forts, and Don Alvar was formally exchanged for El Zagal—the
invalided sheikh being represented by his second in command, and Alured
by his veteran seneschal.
Hugo, however, was not with the Moorish party; for as Ali Atar’s bodily
powers weakened, his jealous vigilance grew keener than ever. True, the
captive (though resolute neither to break his knightly vows, nor
forswear his religion) had skilfully avoided any open gainsaying of the
hints thrown out by his jailers as to the service expected of him, and
allowed them to think that he would comply when the time came. But the
crafty old Moor meant to be on the safe side, and kept the precious
hostage all the more carefully in his sight, the weaker he grew.
To the free-born, high-spirited Hugo this constant sense of being
watched and spied upon, and kept in like a chained dog, would have been
galling at any time; for he was not only a prisoner but a slave—the
slave of those “heathen dogs” whom every Christian of that age, alas!
thought himself bound to hate and curse and slay, in place of trying to
enlighten them and do them good. But now that he had learned that his
brother was alive and near him, and the freedom of which he had begun
to despair actually within reach, this degrading bondage became
intolerable. Every hour seemed a day, every day a year, as he waited in
vain for the promised signal of deliverance; and, worse still, every
day that went fruitlessly by brought the time nearer when the Moors
would attempt their plan of using him to ensnare his own brother. At
any moment he might have to choose between death and treason to his
country and his God; and his own choice would doom him to die like a
felon and a slave, in place of falling (as he had always hoped)
fighting for some good and holy cause in the ranks of his Christian
brethren. Bitterer than all was the thought of perishing just when help
was at hand, and the last hour of his weary bondage about to strike.
Had this grinding torment lasted longer, the captive must have been
crushed by it; but a change was at hand.
On the seventh day after the exchange of prisoners, as Hugo sat moodily
by the sick sheikh (who would hardly let him out of his sight now), a
soldier came to report the arrival of a deserter from Santa Fé.
“A deserter!” cried Ali Atar, regaining for a moment all his lost
energy. “Bring him to me at once, that I may learn what these Spanish
dogs be about.”
Hugo’s heart beat quicker, guessing that this pretended deserter was
the promised agent of his escape. The curtain fell back, and the
soldier ushered in a small, meagre, yellow-faced half-breed, ragged,
dusty, and travel-stained.
“May thy prosperity increase, noble sheikh!” said the supposed
renegade, prostrating himself with cringing Eastern servility. “Permit
thy humblest slave to anoint his eyelids with the dust of thy
threshold, his refuge from Christian dogs!”
“Art thou a true believer?” asked the sheikh, eyeing him as a lion
might eye a monkey.
“Praise be to Allah, I am! There is but one God, and Mohammed is His
Prophet.”
“Thou wert a captive of the infidels, then?” said Ali Atar, looking at
him with a new interest.
“The great sheikh hath said it. I was a slave in the castle of Don
Alvar de Perez (may evil overtake him!), which, as your highness knows,
lieth not far hence; and when the infidel was exchanged for the noble
Emir El Zagal, I, Yakoob (Jacob), the son of Selim, and certain of his
other slaves, were sent to Santa Fé to attend on him; and thence, by
the blessing of Allah, I escaped hither.”
“And what do the dogs of Spain? Methinks the White Knight is not one to
keep his men long idle.”
“He lieth sore sick, but he and De Perez (ill-luck attend them both!)
take counsel daily how to harm the Faithful; and they speak much of
this fort of Tormas, and of one El Katoom, who is therein.”
“Hearest thou this, El Katoom?” said the sheikh to Hugo.
“What! is this he?” cried the half-breed, with well-feigned surprise.
“I counsel him, then, to _beware of the White Knight_, who meaneth him
no good.”
All Hugo’s self-command could not repress a start at this long-expected
signal word; but to Ali Atar such emotion seemed quite natural in a man
thus marked for vengeance by the terrible White Knight.
“But why,” asked he, “should he mean ill to El Katoom, who is a
Christian like himself?”
“The infidel hath heard that El Katoom is minded to turn to the true
faith, and ride in the ranks of the Prophet’s servants (happy be the
day that seeth him thus enlightened). Therefore are the Christian
captains wroth, and have sent forth men to watch for him, vowing to put
him to a cruel death if they take him.”
This tale, though as gross a lie as even Yakoob had ever told, did its
work admirably. It confirmed Ali Atar’s belief that, when the time
came, Hugo would be found compliant; it strengthened his trust in the
man who had brought such news, and it told Hugo himself all he wished
to know.
“Saidst thou not,” cried the sheikh, with a sudden gleam of the old
warrior-fire in his sunken eyes, “that these dogs have sent men to
watch for El Katoom? If thou canst tell me where those men may be
found, rich shall be thy reward.”
“I will do more, mighty sheikh,” said the renegade, whose rat-like eyes
glittered greedily at the word ‘reward.’ “I will myself guide your
highness’s warriors to the spot where, if I heard aright, the Spanish
dogs are to lie in ambush.”
Sure enough, at dawn next morning, Hugo, looking down from his lonely
chamber in the highest tower, saw a band of Moors ride off toward Santa
Fé, with Yakoob as their guide.
Somewhat to Hugo’s surprise, he was not summoned to the commandant’s
presence as usual; and when he wished to leave his room, he found the
door fastened outside!
What could this mean? Had his intended escape been betrayed? The
thought was maddening, and never had the captive strained his eyes more
longingly towards the distant hilltop that hid his brother’s
stronghold, beyond which lay outspread, in the brief, bright, winter
sunshine, the dry, dusty plains and bare uplands of La Mancha, dotted
with the quaint little hamlets and old-fashioned windmills known to Don
Quixote two centuries later.
Presently a stir and bustle arose below, increasing as the day wore on;
but what it meant he could not guess. It was late in the morning when a
soldier brought him food; but the man looked sullen and gloomy, and,
without a word of reply to his eager questions, went hastily out, and
made fast the door.
Deeper and darker grew Hugo’s secret fears, which suddenly received an
unlooked-for and terrible confirmation; for from his lofty tower he all
at once caught a passing glimpse, far away among the wooded hills, of a
small band of riders in Christian dress flying as if for their lives
from the pursuit of the turbaned horsemen!
Hugo turned pale, and his heart grew heavy as lead. Was this, then, the
rout of the detachment sent to aid his escape, and the ruin of his last
hope?
But a moment’s thought reassured him. So small a band was plainly
unequal to coping with the superior numbers of the Moors, and might,
after all, be only a scouting party, which would naturally fall back
when menaced by such odds. Still, the sight did not tend to raise his
drooping spirits, and he eagerly awaited an explanation.
But his second warder was as obstinately silent as the first, and his
anxiety remained unallayed.
Afternoon was waning into evening, when he heard a tramp of hoofs and a
clamour of voices, and looking down saw the Moorish band returning,
plainly in high glee. From their loud and boastful replies to their
comrades’ eager queries, Hugo gathered that their guide had led them by
various by-paths to a wooded hollow some miles away; that he had there
made them halt, while he plunged into the thickets alone; that he
suddenly came flying back, chased by several Spanish horsemen, who fell
back at sight of the Moors; and the latter, charging in turn, broke
right into the midst of a band of ambushed foes. In the ensuing
skirmish, several were wounded on either side, though none actually
slain; but the Christians were put to flight, and the Moors brought
home as trophies the cloaks and weapons let fall by the fugitives.
This affair—their first brush with the enemy since their fatal defeat
at the Guarama Pass—highly elated the Moors, who held it as quite a
victory; but Hugo himself thought otherwise.
He had heard enough of the defenders of Santa Fé to be sure that they
were not the men to turn their backs on any Moorish force without good
reason. What if this were but a feint of his brother to throw the Moors
off their guard, and confirm their trust in the guide who had led them
so successfully? What if that guide, while pretending to beat the
thicket in quest of foes, had found a moment to make his report to
Alured or one of his officers, and then come bursting forth as if
pursued?
The more he thought of this, the more likely did it seem; and his heart
was lighter when the door opened to admit his evening meal, brought by
two men, one of whom was Yakoob the guide!
While pretending to arrange the table, Yakoob passed close to him and
whispered—
“Be ready to-morrow at nightfall.”
There was little sleep that night for Hugo de Claremont.
Next morning he was roused from a brief snatch of feverish slumber by a
cry, or rather wail, echoing through the whole castle; and springing to
the window, he heard a Moor below call out to a comrade—
“Is it so in very deed, friend Ibrahim?” (Abraham).
“It is even so, brother Yoosoof (Joseph). To God we belong, and to Him
must we return. Our father, Ali Atar, has gone home to the mercy of
God!”
Hugo felt his bold heart stand still. Ali Atar dead! Who could tell
what might come of it? But the results were to be such as even he could
not have foreseen.
The dead sheikh’s successor was a fiery young Moor, full of confidence
in himself and scorn of his Spanish foes. The moment he heard from the
untiring Yakoob (who had been out on the watch since dawn) that a
Spanish band of raiders had been seen not far away, young Suleimaun,
without a thought of the important fortress under his care, sallied out
with all his best men to fall on “the infidel dogs.”
Slowly the weary hours of that endless day crept by, and at nightfall
rose to the captive’s ear the hoarse challenge of a sentry at the gate
to some one outside.
Hugo could not hear the reply, but the soldier rejoined at once—
“It is good; enter, friend.”
The heavy gate swung slowly open, and the torch lighted by the other
sentry showed Hugo two men in Moorish dress riding into the courtyard,
the foremost calling out as he entered—
“Good news, brother! our captain Suleimaun is victorious, and he and
his men will be here ere long, with the heads of the Christian dogs on
their spears.”
Hugo’s heart leaped, for though the speaker was dressed as a Moor, and
spoke fluent Arabic, the voice was that of his brother! The hour of
escape had come!
Even with the overwhelming joy of that moment, however, mingled a
thrill of terror at the thought of what must happen, were the famous
White Knight, the Moors’ most dreaded foe, detected within their walls.
But he had no time to think of it, for just then his door swung
noiselessly back, and in the doorway stood a shadowy form, as if shaped
from the gathering darkness.
“Come!” said a ghostly whisper; and Yakoob, taking him by the arm, led
him cautiously forth.
“The doors below are locked and guarded, but I will bring thee out by a
better way, and with this thou may’st climb up out of the ditch.”
He thrust into Hugo’s hand a long pole with an iron hook, used for
taking down the lamps in the great hall. Hugo clutched it (with a
passing thought that it might serve as a weapon), and followed his
guide round the angle of the wall.
This inner wall was but twelve feet high, and the ditch below, though
deep, was narrow, and almost dry in places. Neither seemed formidable
to the active Englishman, who was about to let himself drop, when
Yakoob laid a restraining hand on his arm, and uttered a skilful
imitation of the cry of a night-bird.
The cry was at once echoed below, and from behind a huge heap of dry
forage glided two dim forms, whom Hugo (though he could barely see
them) easily guessed to be Alured and his assistant.
Yakoob let down a silken cord, to which Alured made fast a heavy purse.
The rascal drew up his ill-got gains with greedy haste, and then
produced a strong rope, which he knotted round a jutting pinnacle.
Hugo shot down it like an arrow, but hardly had he touched the earth,
when Yakoob shouted from above, with all his might—
“Hither, hither, true believers! here is a Christian dog escaping!”
In fact, this double-dyed traitor, who really was a follower of Don
Alvar, and had been well paid by him and Alured to aid Hugo’s escape,
had all along intended to earn a twofold reward by helping him up to a
certain point and then betraying him.
Even Alured and his veteran helper were paralyzed for a moment by this
new and fearful dilemma; but Hugo was as prompt as ever. Clutching his
pole by the end, he darted it upward, and just caught with his hook the
traitor’s skirt as it hung over the parapet. The sudden tug flung
Yakoob headlong into the muddy ditch, and Hugo, in turn, shouted
lustily—
“Help, brothers, or the infidel will escape!”
“Where is he?” cried several Moorish soldiers, rushing up.
“Yonder he lies,” said Hugo, pointing to the half-seen form of the
stunned Yakoob, now almost buried in the mud. “I cannot drag him forth
unaided. Seize and hold him fast!”
“We will!” cried they; and, leaping into the ditch, they pounced upon
the wrong man, and dragged him off, he being so smeared with mud as to
defy recognition.
Just then Alured, now his own cool and daring self again, fired the
pile of forage beside him, which, dry as tinder, at once sent up a
broad jet of flame far into the air.
“Fire!” he roared, as the rising wind whirled a shower of fiery flakes
against the towers above. “Help, brothers! The castle burns!”
The soldiers at the outer gate flew at once to quench the flames, and
the three Englishmen, hidden by the smoke, darted to the now unguarded
gate, and began to unbar it.
But just as they thought themselves already safe, one of the Moors
happened to look round, and, seeing what they were about, came hastily
back, saying—
“What do ye? No man opens these gates after dark, save at our captain’s
bidding.”
One moment more and all would have been discovered; but just then a
trampling of hoofs was heard outside, mingled with the Moslem war-cry,
“Allah Ackbar!” (God is victorious), and the Moor, supposing that
Suleimaun and his band had returned, opened the gate himself.
In poured a long line of riders in Moorish garb, whose white dresses,
emerging from the gloom into the glare of the fire, gave them the look
of rising ghosts. But hardly had they entered, when they flung off
their disguise and appeared in Spanish armour, while a shout of “St.
James for Spain!” made the air ring.
Alured’s plan had succeeded beyond his hopes. Warned by the traitor
Yakoob of Ali Atar’s death and Suleimaun’s intended sally, he and Don
Alvar had fallen on the rash young leader unawares, cut off him and all
his men, and entered Tormas in the clothes of the slain!
The garrison fought fiercely, but they had not a chance of success; and
ere the moon rose, the Christians were masters of Tormas. Yakoob was
paid for his villainy as he deserved, being murdered by the enraged
Moors in mistake for their prisoner; and Hugo was free at last.
“Now I know that God has forgiven me,” said Alured, solemnly, as he and
his brother stood hand in hand on the captured fort at daybreak, with
the banner of Spain waving over them. “Canst thou forgive me too, Hugo?”
“I have nought to forgive, brother,” cried Hugo, laying his hand
lovingly on the other’s shoulder. “Let all the past be as an ill dream,
and let us thank God that He hath given us a chance to do some little
good.”
“And that we may lose no time in doing it,” cried Alured, “let us now
hie home to England; for it fits us not to forget, while upholding
God’s cause abroad, the true vassals whom He hath given into our care
at home. Our noble master, the Black Prince, hath cared for our lands
in our absence, and we shall doubtless find all in good order.”
And early next day the long-parted twins set off homeward together.