LITMIR.BIZ

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quavering. He stood in the court, and saw her bending over the keys, while all the silver pipes were ringing. The notes, marked red and green on the parchment, were spread before her. Sylvana had her hand on the bellows, as her mistress sang the mad old pagan chorus of Euripides:—

      "O Eros, O Eros, how melts love's yearning

      From thine eyes when the sweet spell witcheth the heart

      Of them against whom thou hast marched in thy might!

      Not me, not me, for mine hurt do thou smite,

      My life's heart-music to discord turning.

      For never so hotly the flame-spears dart,

      Nor so fleet are the star-shot arrows of light,

      As the shaft from thy fingers that speedeth its flight,

      As the flame of the Love-queen's bolts fierce burning,

      O Eros, the child of Zeus who art!"

      Richard stepped softly across the rugs. The bell-like voice died away, the organ notes wandered, were still. Mary rose from the music. Flushed indeed was her face, but her voice was steady.

      "I have sent for you, Sir Richard!" she said. "I am glad you have come."

      But Richard, foolish fellow, had run to her, and crushed her to his breast in his giant arms, and was trying to say something with his lips very near to hers. And Mary felt his touch and kiss as blest as a heaven-sent fire.

      "O sweetest of the sweet!" he was crying, "what have I done that I should have such joy? For one such touch from you, I would have beaten down a thousand De Valmonts."

      "And do you think, Richard," said she, piteously, "that all I love in you is this?"—and she pressed her hand around the knotted muscles of his arm. Then she began to weep and laugh at once, and they both wept and laughed, like the children that they were; and Sylvana smiled softly to her sly old self, and bore away the organ.

      "And what was in your heart, Mary," cried the Norman, when he found a steady tongue, "that night when you held the goblet to my lips at Cefalu?"

      "And what was in yours when you drank? Oh, I was all madness that night. I said to myself, 'Here is the kind of man I would fain be born,—with a twinkling eye and an arm like iron.' Had not my father's gaze been on me, St. Theodore knows what I would have done! What with your head so close to mine, and the wild deeds of the day making us as friends for a thousand years! But now," and she began to laugh again softly, "you will have to tame me a great deal. I may look a wood-dove, but I have the heart of a hawk. It will be a long time before I can be content to obey any one;" then with a naughty toss of her pretty head,—"even you."

      "Ah!" exclaimed Richard, "it is I that need the taming; I, whose wits are in my hands, who love the ring of good steel better than all Musa's roundelays."

      "Let us not settle too much of the future," answered she, pertly; "we shall perhaps know each other better as time speeds." So they twittered and laughed, till long after the last bird-song had died into silence, the last bulbul had folded his weary head under a wing. A full moon was overhead when Richard swung onto the back of Rollo. His lips were still sweet with the nectar of a warm kiss; the wind was just creeping over the orange grove, which was whispering softly. Here and there the fireflies flashed out tiny beacons. Rollo threw up his great muzzle, and shook his raven mane, as if he knew, rascal that he was, of the joy in his master's heart. Then, swift as the north wind he flew toward Palermo, and for Richard, as he rode, the night shone as a summer's morn.

      The gossips at Palermo bandied the tale about, almost before those concerned in it knew it themselves. No one marvelled; all said that Richard Longsword had fairly won his prize, and Mary Kurkuas would never have shame for her lord. Only the Emir Iftikhar communed darkly with his own heart, and with certain sworn followers of his in the Saracen guard. The good syndic Al-Bakri was a mighty newsmonger. A certain neighbor brought him a story; he in turn dealt it out to Musa; and the Spaniard gave Richard Longsword strong reasons for wearing his Valencia mail shirt under his bleaunt. Baron William had returned to Cefalu. But when a letter came from his son, the seigneur sent straightway, bidding Richard come home, and bring with him Mary Kurkuas, who it was not meet should remain alone, with only Sylvana and the serving-men and maids at Monreale. Richard, hasty mortal, would have had her to church before setting out. But Mary shook her head. The turf was not yet green over the grave of the Cæsar, and she owed a duty to her mother's kinsfolk in Provence. If Richard was to go to Auvergne, she would go with him to La Haye, the barony of her uncle, and there might be the wedding. So with Sylvana as duenna, away they went to Cefalu. There dear Lady Margaret opened her heart wide to the motherless Greek; and they spent many a merry day, with guests and good company coming from far and near to drink at the Baron's board, and to pledge the health of "the peerless lady, Mary Kurkuas, the fairest of her age in all Sicily and France." Day after day Richard and Mary rode forth together; for the Greek was as mad a rider as though born on the saddle. The white falcon was on her wrist; they chased the luckless quarry over thicket and brake, while Longsword laughed as he saw how Mary dashed beside him. And there were long evenings, when in the soft gloaming, and no other was near, they could sit in Lady Margaret's bower outside the castle walls, with the sleeping flowers clinging all about, and a little stream tumbling gently in the ravine below. Here every breath was eloquence, every word a poem, and the voice of Mary sweeter than Musa's lute. Only Mary,—for Richard was all blind these days,—noticed that Musa and Herbert were ever watchful; that Musa always insisted that his friend wear the Valencia shirt; that even when the lovers rode off seemingly alone, there would be Musa or Herbert or Nasr riding within bowshot.

      All the castle had opened its heart to Mary,—even Sebastian; though the churchman did not capitulate without a struggle.

      "Lady," said he once to her, "you Greeks are in peril of your souls. You communicate with leavened, not unleavened, bread, for which you may all go to perdition; and in your creed you do omit Filioque, in speaking of the Holy Ghost, which I do conceive is the sin whereof Our Lord speaks, saying, 'He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation.' And for this sin Pope Leo Third had your patriarch excommunicated, and delivered over to be buffeted by Satan."

      But Mary only answered very gravely:—

      "Are not men created in God's image?"

      "Certainly, daughter," replied Sebastian, soberly.

      "And is Nasr, the abominable devil-visaged Saracen here, a man?"

      "A man," began poor Sebastian, wavering, "yet created for—"

      "Surely," cried Mary, cutting him short, "God has a strange image, if it is like Nasr. Unless, indeed, he be of the race Vergilius the heretical philosopher describes: born in the Antipodes, not descended from Adam, and for whom no Redeemer died."

      "Daughter, daughter," protested Sebastian.

      "Do not be angry," came the reply, "only I will answer for my heresy when you explain concerning Nasr." And with this Sebastian was content to drop the encounter.

      Then of a sudden came a day when the even flow of life at Cefalu was rudely shaken. Richard and Mary had ridden with some retinue to games which Baron William's neighbor, the Lord of Pollina, had been holding. The jousts had been hot, though not so fierce as to be bloody. Richard had refused to ride, for all the country-side stood in some awe of him. Musa had won the hearts of all the ladies, as he ever did, by his dashing horsemanship and grace. Evening was beginning to fall. They were still two miles from Cefalu, and before them opened a long, shaded avenue of holm-oak and cypress, through which shimmered the failing light. Mary touched whip to her fleet palfrey. The good horse shot forward, and beside her raced Richard, leaving the rest behind. They had swung into the avenue, the steeds were just stretching their necks for a headlong pace, when lo, as by magic, behind a thicket rose three men, and in a twinkling three arrows sped into Longsword's breast! The clang of the bow and Mary's cry were as one. But even as Richard reeled in the saddle, Musa and Nasr were beside him, at a raging gallop. The Norman shivered, sat erect. One arrow was quivering in his saddle leather, two hung by the barbs from his mantle.

      "You are wounded!" was the cry of the Greek. But Richard put her by with a sweep

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