“I outstripped the pursuers,” said Cahal, “and as I rode over a hill I looked back and saw the great black mass of the horde swarming like locusts over the land, filling the sky with the clamor of their kettledrums. The Turkomans had risen behind us as we had raced through their lands, and now the desert was alive with horsemen – but the whole east was aflame and the tribesmen had no time to hunt down a single rider. They were faced with a stronger foe. So I won through.
“My horse fell under me, but I stole a steed from a herd watched by a Turkoman boy. When it could do no more, I took a mount from a wandering Kurd who rode up, thinking to loot a dying traveller. And now I say to you, whom men dub the Watcher of the Trail – beware, lest these demons from the east ride over your ruins as they have ridden over the corpses of the Turkomans. I do not think they’ll lay siege – they are like wolves ranging the steppes; they strike and pass on. But they ride like the wind. They have crossed the Euphrates. Behind me last night the sky was red as blood. Hard as I have ridden, they must be close on my heels.”
“Let them come,” grimly answered the Arab. “El Omad has held out against Nazarene, Kurd and Turk – for a hundred years no foe has set foot within these walls.
But Cahal shook his head.
“You will not need my help, and I have other work to do. It was not to save my worthless life that I have ridden three noble steeds to death – otherwise I had left my body beside Renault d’Ibelin. I must ride on; Jerusalem is in the path of these devils, with its ruined walls and scanty guard.”
Suleyman paled and plucked his beard.
“Al Kuds! These pagan dogs will slay Christian and Muhammadan alike, and desecrate the holy places!”
“And so,” Cahal rose stiffly, “I must on to warn them. So swiftly have these Kharesmians come that no word of their coming can have gone into Palestine. On me alone the burden of warning lies. Give me a fleet horse and let me go.”
“You can do no more,” objected Suleyman. “You are foredone – an hour more and you would drop senseless from the saddle. I will send one of my men instead – ”
Cahal shook his head. “The duty is mine. Yet I will sleep an hour – one small hour can make no great difference. Then I will fare on.”
“Come to my couch,” urged Suleyman, but the hardy Gael shook his head.
“This has been my couch before,” said he, and flinging himself down on the scanty grass of the courtyard, he drew his cloak about him and fell into the deep sleep of utter exhaustion. Yet he slept but an hour when he awoke of his own accord. Food and wine were placed before him and he drank and ate ravenously. His features were still drawn and haggard, but in his short rest he had drawn upon hidden springs of endurance. An iron man in an age of iron, he added to his physical ruggedness a dynamic nerve-energy that carried him beyond himself and upheld him after more stolid men had dropped by the wayside.
As he reined out of the gates on a swift Arab steed, the watchmen shouted and pointed to the east where a pillar of smoke billowed up against the hot blue sky. The Shaykh flung up his arm in salute as Cahal rode toward Jerusalem at a swinging gallop that ate up the miles.
Bedouins in their black felt tents gaped at him; herdsmen leaning on their staves stiffened at his shout. A rising drum of hoofs, the wave of a mailed arm, a shouted warning, then the dwindling hoof-beats – behind him the frenzied people snatched up their belongings and fled shrieking to places of shelter or hiding.
V
The moon was setting as Cahal splashed through the calm waters of the Jordan, flecked with the mirrored stars. The sun was rising when his horse fell at the gate of Jerusalem that opens on the Damascus road. Cahal staggered up, half dead himself, and gazing on the crumbling ruins of the shattered walls, he groaned aloud. On foot he hurried forward and a group of placid Syrians watched him curiously. A bearded Flemish man-at-arms came forward, trailing his pike. Cahal snatched a wine-flask that hung at the soldier’s girdle and emptied it at one draft.
“Lead me to the patriarch,” he gasped throatily. “Doom rides on swift hoofs to Jerusalem – ha!”
From the people a thin cry of wonder and fear had gone up – Cahal wheeled and felt fear constrict his throat. Again in the east he saw flying flame and drifting smoke – the gigantic tracks of the destroying horde.
“They have crossed the Jordan!” he cried. “Saints of God, when did men born of women ride so madly? They spurn the very wind – curst be the weakness that made me waste even a single hour – ”
The words died in his throat as he looked at the ruined walls. Truly, an hour more or less could have no significance in that doomed city.
Cahal hurried through the streets with the soldier and he saw that already the word had spread like wild-fire. Jews in their blue shubas ran about howling; in the streets and on the house-tops women wrung their white hands and wailed. Tall Syrians bound their belongings on donkeys and formed the nucleus of a disorderly horde that streamed out of the western gates staggering under bundles of household goods. The city crouched trembling and dazed with terror under the threat rising in the east. What horde was sweeping upon them they did not know, nor care; death is death, whoever the dealer.
Some cried out that the Tartars were upon them and both Moslem and Nazarene shook. Cahal found the patriarch bewildered and helpless. With a handful of soldiers, how could he defend the wallless city? He was ready to give up his life in the vain attempt; he could do no more. The mullahs rallied their people, and for the first time in all history Moslem and Christian joined forces to defend the city that was holy to both. The great mass of the people fled into the mosques or the cathedrals, or crouched resignedly in the streets, dumbly awaiting the stroke. Men cried on Jehovah and on Allah, and some prophesied a miracle that should deliver the Holy City. But in the merciless blue sky no flaming sword appeared, only the smoke of the pillaging, the flame of the slaughter and at last the dust clouds of the riders.
The patriarch had bunched his pitiful force of men-at-arms, knights, armed pilgrims and Moslems, at the Damascus Gate. Useless to man the ruined walls. There they would face the horde and give up their lives, without hope and without fear.
Cahal, his weariness half forgotten in the drunkenness of anticipated battle, reined beside the patriarch on the great red stallion that had been given him, and cried out suddenly at the sight of a tall, broad man on a rangy Turkish bay.
“Haroun, by all the Saints!”
The other turned toward him and Cahal wavered. Was this Haroun? The fellow was clad in the mail shirt and peaked helmet of a Turkish soldier. On his brawny right arm he bore a round spiked buckler and at his belt hung a long broad scimitar, heavier by pounds than the average Moslem blade. Moreover, Haroun had been clean-shaven and this man wore the fierce curving mustachios of the Turk. Yet the build of him – that square dark face – those blazing blue eyes –
“By the Saints, Haroun,” said Cahal heartily, “what do you here?”
“Allah blast me if I be any Haroun,” answered the soldier in a deep growling voice. “I am Akbar the Soldier, come to Al Kuds on pilgrimage. You have mistaken me for another.”
Cahal frowned. The voice was not even that of Haroun, yet surely in all the world there was not such another pair of eyes. He shrugged his shoulders.
“Well, it is of no moment – where are you going?”
For the man had reined about.
“To the hills!” answered the soldier. “We can do no good by dying here – best come with me. From the dust, it is a whole horde that is riding upon us.”
“Flee without striking a blow? Not I!” snapped Cahal. “Go, if you fear.”
Akbar swore loudly. “By Allah and by Allah! A man had better place his head beneath an elephant’s tread than call me coward! I’ll stand my ground as long as any Nazarene!”
