The dungeon of al Mamun was a squat brick square, with a flat clay
roof and tiny slit windows, erected at a little distance from the main
building of his establishment, between the wharf and the barracks that
housed his common soldiery. In its stinking, superheated confines now
lay a score of Crusaders, captured a month before while on detached
patrol duty from Richard's forces; twenty-seven Bedouins, the remains
of Godwin's army; fourteen assorted Saracens, in jail for one offense
or another against Mufaddal; El Sareuk and Godwin himself.
There was barely enough floor space for each man of the sixty-three to
stand upright, or to sit, if he didn't mind jostling his neighbors.
Godwin was standing by a window looking out at the dock from which the
dark plague ship, a tall obscene blot against the descending moon, had
a quarter of an hour before set sail. El Sareuk was beside him, making
suggestions.
"How if we all formed a kind of wedge, Godwin, and began battering the
door with the point? A few would be crushed, certainly, but the door
might be torn down."
"Well, we'll try it, old wolf, if nothing better occurs to us." Godwin
leaned in the little embrasure, tugging fretfully at his blond beard.
"If I had my sword...!" He clanked his leg chains with anger; they had
chained him and El Sareuk and a couple of the brawnier Crusaders. Damn
all, he thought to himself. The ship is gone, what does it matter if we
get out or not? Except to save Ramizail, of course. If I could remember
what I did with that bloody ring! Mihrjan could sink that ship like an
oaken chip.
And then, as the moon touched the far crest of the sea, the door opened
and a Mameluke thrust in his head.
"Godwin! Godwin's wanted!"
The prisoners all burst into raucous speech, invitations and curses.
"Come and get him!"
"Do venture within, jailer, and let us show thee something pretty!"
"Enter, thou fuzz-bearded son of a dung heap, and fetch him!"
Godwin pushed his way to the door. The Mameluke retreated behind it.
"Step out, Godwin," he said, nervously prodding the Englishman with his
sword. "Mufaddal wants you."
Godwin grinned evilly, and stepped forth. The Mameluke, who Godwin
now saw had a file of soldiers at his back, slammed the door on the
execrations of the prisoners. "Come along," he growled.
El Sareuk, watching from a window, saw Godwin disappear with a firm
step into the waning night, clinking his leg chains jauntily.
For long he did not come back. The old Arab harangued the sixty-one men
who were left, urging that they forget their feuds and crusades and
band together against their captor; and they agreed whole-heartedly
with him, and fell to making plans for escape and vengeance. Not a man
of them but hated Mufaddal, and most of all for his loathsome scheme of
the plague ship.
They all sat down, crowding up to one another in the heat and stench of
the prison, and made a narrow aisle through the center of the place so
that El Sareuk could pace up and down while he talked and gestured and
plotted, rattling the iron fetters on his legs.
"If we can get out, and I say we can, even if we leave half our number
dead on the floor behind us, then we must make a dash for the house,
and pulverize this devil before he can concoct any more foul designs!"
he shouted.
They all roared. The building seemed to quiver on its foundations. El
Sareuk smote his forehead. "Now by Allah and again by Allah! Is this
our answer? Remember the walls of Jericho, O Brothers!"
They caught his meaning at once, and at the upswing of his hand every
man let loose a full-throated bellow. A Crusader edged into a corner
shouted, "The walls shuddered! The force of the sound shook them!"
They repeated the clamor, and dirt from the roof sifted down over them.
For five minutes they raised a thunderous din, and might have gone on
doing so till the sun rose, had not the door drawn open just then.
They all peered round, and a gorilla walked in. It was chained around
the ankles and had a quizzical expression on its broad flat face.
They were brave men, but unarmed, and they all shrank away from it
with indrawn breath and small fearful cries. El Sareuk, pale, clutched
automatically for his absent scimitar.
The door slammed. The gorilla scratched its head, leaned against the
jamb, and remarked in a loud disgusted voice, laden thick with English
accent, "What the hell is the matter with you white-livered ruffians?
You think I'm going to eat you?"