HOW MORGIANA WOUND HER LAST SPELL
Wrong had been done Iftikhar, when the Franks boasted he had fled
headlong with Kerbogha and his coward _atabegs_. Had all his peers in
the Moslem host fought as he, there might have been fewer Christian
_Glorias_. Where death was thickest he had sought it. Under his
cimeter had sped many a Frankish life. At the end he had led the final
charge of his "devoted," maddest rider in all that headlong band. But
doom had been against him; the Ismaelians had died where they could
not conquer. Iftikhar, escaping fifty deaths, had thrown himself into
a band of flying Turkomans, beseeching, threatening, adjuring, to make
them turn for a last stand. One howl met his prayer.
"Fate is against us! Flee! Flee! Allah aids the Franks!"
He struck the fugitives with his cimeter; they fled more swiftly. He
thrust his beast across their path; the good Arabian was nigh swept
down in the vortex of the panic. Panic everywhere, the Franks flying
after, each Christian a raging jinn whose joy was slaying.
Then at last Iftikhar knew he could do no more, and he turned the head
of his wounded steed to ride on the Christian lances. But just as he
was casting shield away, that death might light more quickly, the hand
of a strange rider plucked his saddle rein, and before the grand prior
could strike at the unknown, Zeyneb's voice sounded in his ears above
the "_Montjoye!_" of the onrushing French:
"What, Cid? You ride to death?"
"Unhand!" thundered Iftikhar, "all is lost! I know how to die!"
But Zeyneb with a wondrous strength had tugged at the bits and swung
the charger's head; and close by, the Egyptian saw another rider,
unarmored, in a flowing dress,--but the face was turned from him.
"You are mad, lord!" cried Zeyneb. "Do not cast yourself away. Fate
will change, Allah willing!"
Then, as Iftikhar struggled to turn, a squadron of flying Persian
light horse struck them, and swept the three riders away perforce in
its flight.
"Faster, faster!" the Persians were shrieking; "the Franks! Their
horses are vultures! their strength as of monsters!"
Iftikhar cursed while he strove vainly to escape them and ride against
the pursuers.
"Fools, sons of pigs and Jews!" roared he; "see, scarce ten men
follow, and you an hundred. Turn; ride them down!"
"They are ten sheytans," yelled the rest, spurring harder. "Speed,
brothers, speed!"
Iftikhar glanced back. Behind him flew De Valmont and Tancred, who
knew him by his armor, and taunted:--
"Face to face, Cid Iftikhar; did you fly thus at Palermo?"
But the Persians pricked their beasts to a headlong gallop; the Franks
rode down some, and slew them; the rest made their escape. When the
Christians left the chase in the evening, Iftikhar found himself with
a wounded and weary steed upon the bare Syrian hill slope, with only
Zeyneb for escort. The strangely dressed rider he had noticed,
followed half an arrow flight behind; but the Egyptian gave little
heed. Hardly had he drawn rein before another squadron of breathless
riders joined him, their horses' flanks in blood and foam. Their chief
was Kerbogha, master that morning of two hundred thousand sword-hands,
master that night of scarce fifty. Iftikhar bowed his casque in gloomy
salutation, but the lord of Mosul did not return it.
"Cid Iftikhar," came his words, cold as ice, "we have played our
chess-game with fortune. Mated! and we play no more! Forget that I
have known you!"
"I do not understand, my lord!" protested Iftikhar, his color rising.
"Clearer, then," and Kerbogha peered backward, lest the Frankish
banners tossed again in the gloaming. "We went to Antioch first to
crush the Franks, but also to gather, unhindered and unsuspected, an
army to grind Barkyarok and the Kalif. We gathered the army. Where it
is now, demand of the winds and the blood-red plain! Our plot is
ended. Barkyarok will suspect. Let Hassan Sabah gain his empire in his
own way. I must save myself by forswearing the Ismaelians and be all
loyalty to the arch-sultan. As for you, let Allah save or slay, you
are neither friend nor foe to me. Go your way; forget me, as I forget
you!"
"But our oaths--our pledge of comradeship till death!" urged Iftikhar,
in rising wrath.
"Death? A hundred thousand dead Moslems have wiped out the bond.
Cursed be the day I listened to your plots!"
"Then answer sword to sword!" raged the Egyptian, in frenzy, and ready
to join mortal grapple. But a shout from the emir's escort sent
Kerbogha fleeing away, without so much as replying.
"The Franks! They follow! Flight, flight!"
A false alarm, but the lord of Mosul and his fifty had vanished in the
thickening twilight; his speed such that the hoof-beats were soon
faint in the distance. Iftikhar looked about him. The night was sowing
the stars. The young moon was shining with its feathery crescent. Far
and wide stretched the desolate hills, fast fading into one black
waste. Lost! the battle lost! the hope of empire lost! the vengeance
on Richard lost! the love of Mary Kurkuas lost! He had only a wounded
horse, his cimeter, and his arms. That morning twelve thousand men
would have died for him at his nod. Yes, and had died! It was the
stroke of doom, the doom that had been written a million years, before
Allah called the heavens out of smoke, the earth out of darkness; and
there was no escaping. The Christians had turned back to Antioch, but
Iftikhar knew where to find them. He could ride back on his tracks,
enter their camp, slay seven men before dying himself, and give the
lie to the taunts of De Valmont and Tancred. So doing he would save
one last treasure--his honor.
"Zeyneb!" he said sternly, "go your way. You are at the end of your
service. I must ride to Antioch."
"And why to Antioch, Cid?"
"To win back the honor you stole from me."
Iftikhar had leaped to the ground to tighten his girths, when the
strange rider came beside him and dismounted. As he rose from his
task, he saw a veiled woman facing him; and while he started and
trembled, she swept the veil from her face. Morgiana standing in the
moonlight!
For an instant not a word passed. Then Iftikhar spoke: "Morgiana,
surely Eblees will gain you at last, since he sends you here." His
voice was shaking with towering passion.
"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 Godfrey 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 hell--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
passed 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 horsemen 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 Godfrey. In gratitude 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."