'I have never killed a man,' whispered Stimbol.
'Nor hast thou ever been killed,' reminded the sheik; 'but tonight thou must kill or tomorrow thou wilt be killed.'
'God!' gasped Stimbol.
'It is late,' said Ibn Jad, 'and I go to my sleeping mat. I have warned thee—do what thou wilt in the matter,' and he arose as though to enter the women's quarters.
Trembling, Stimbol staggered out into the night. For a moment he hesitated, then he crouched and crept silently through the darkness toward the beyt that bad been erected for the ape-man.
But ahead of him ran Ateja to warn the man who had saved her lover from the fangs of el-adrea. She was almost at the beyt she had helped to erect for the ape-man when a figure stepped from another tent and clapping a palm across her mouth and an arm about her waist held her firmly.
'Where goest thou?' whispered a voice in her ear, a voice that she recognized at once as belonging to her uncle; but Tollog did not wait for a reply, he answered for her. 'Thou wants to warn the Nasrany because he befriended thy lover! Go thee back to thy father's beyt. If he knew this he would slay thee. Go!' And he gave her a great shove in the direction from which she had come.
There was a nasty smile upon Tollog's lips as he thought how neatly he had foiled the girl, and he thanked Allah that chance had placed him in a position to intercept her before she had been able to ruin them all; and even as Tollog, the brother of the sheik, smiled in his beard, a hand reached out of the darkness behind him and seized him by the throat—fingers grasped him and dragged him away.
Trembling, bathed in cold sweat, grasping in tightly clenched fingers the hilt of a keen knife, Wilbur Stimbol crept through the darkness toward the tent of his victim.
Stimbol had been an irritable man, a bully and a coward; but he was no criminal. Every fiber of his being revolted at the thing he contemplated. He did not want to kill, but he was a cornered human rat and he thought that death stared him in the face, leaving open only this one way of escape.
As he entered the beyt of the ape-man he steeled himself to accomplish that for which he had come, and he was indeed a very dangerous, a very formidable man, as he crept to the side of the figure lying in the darkness, wrapped in an old burnous.
Chapter Fourteen
Sword and Buckler
AS THE sun touched the turrets of the castle of the Prince of Nimmr a youth rolled from between his blankets, rubbed his eyes and stretched. Then he reached over and shook another youth of about his own age who slept beside him.
'Awaken, Edward! Awaken, thou sluggard!' he cried.
Edward rolled over on his back and essayed to say 'Eh?' and to yawn at the same time.
'Up, lad!' urged Michel. 'Forgottest thou that thy master fares forth to be slain this day?'
Edward sat up, now fully awake. His eyes flashed. ''Tis a lie!' he cried, loyally. 'He will cleave Sir Malud from poll to breast plate with a single blow. Livest no sir knight with such mighty thews as hast Sir James. Thou art disloyal, Michel, to Sir Richard's friend who hath been a good and kindly friend to us as well.'
Michel patted the other lad upon the shoulder. 'Nay, I did but jest, Edward,' he said. 'My hopes be all for Sir James, and yet—' he paused, 'I fear—'
'Fear what?' demanded Edward.
'That Sir James be not well enough versed in the use of sword and buckler to overcome Sir Malud, for even were his strength the strength of ten men it shall avail him naught without the skill to use it.'
'Thou shall see!' maintained Edward, stoutly.
'I see that Sir James hath a loyal squire,' said a voice behind them, and turning they saw Sir Richard standing in the doorway, 'and may all his friends wish him well this day thus loyally!'
'I fell asleep last night praying to our Lord Jesus to guide his blade through Sir Malud's helm,' said Edward.
'Good! Get thee up now and look to thy master's mail and to the trappings of his steed, that he may enter the lists bedight as befits a noble sir knight of Nimmr,' instructed Richard, and left them.
It was eleven o'clock of this February morning. The sun shone down into the great north ballium of the castle of Nimmr , glinting from the polished mail of noble knights and from pike and battle-axe of men-at-arms, picking out the gay color of the robes of the women gathered in the grandstand below the inner wall.
Upon a raised dais at the front and center of the grandstand sat Prince Gobred and his party, and upon either side of them and extending to the far ends of the stand were ranged the noble knights and ladies of Nimmr, while behind them sat men-at-arms who were off duty, then the freedmen and, last of all, the serfs, for under the beneficent rule of the house of Gobred these were accorded many privileges.
At either end of the lists was a tent, gay with pennons and the colors and devices of its owner; one with the green and gold of Sir Malud and the other with the blue and silver of Sir James.
Before each of these tilts stood two men-at-arms, resplendent in new apparel, the metal of their battle-axes gleaming brightly, and here a groom held a restive, richly caparisoned charger, while the squire of each of the contestants busied himself with last-minute preparations for the encounter.
A trumpeter, statuesque, the bell of his trumpet resting upon his hip, waited for the signal to sound the fanfare that would announce the entrance of his master into the lists.
A few yards to the rear a second charger champed upon his bit as he nuzzled the groom that held him in waiting for the knight who would accompany each of the contestants upon the field.
In the blue and silver tilt sat Blake and Sir Richard, the latter issuing instructions and advice, and of the two he was the more nervous. Blake's hauberk, gorget and bassinet were of heavy chain mail, the latter lined inside and covered outside, down to the gorget, with leopard skin, offering fair protection for his head from an ordinary, glancing blow; upon his breast was sewn a large, red cross and from one shoulder depended the streamers of a blue and silver rosette. Hanging from the pole of the tilt, upon a wooden peg, were Blake's sword and buckler.
The grandstand was filled. Prince Gobred glanced up at the sun and spoke to a knight at his side. The latter gave a brief command to a trumpeter stationed at the princely loge and presently, loud and clear, the notes of a trumpet rang in the ballium. Instantly the tilts at either end of the lists were galvanized to activity, while the grandstand seemed to spring to new life as necks were craned first toward the tent of Sir Malud and then toward that of Sir James.
Edward, flushed with excitement, ran into the tilt and seizing Blake's sword passed the girdle about his hips and buckled it in place at his left side, then, with the buckler, he followed his master out of the tilt.
As Blake prepared to mount Edward held his stirrup while the groom sought to quiet the nervous horse. The lad pressed Blake's leg after he had swung into the saddle (no light accomplishment, weighed down as he was by heavy chain mail) and looked up into his face.
'I have prayed for thee, Sir James,' he said, 'I know that thou wilt prevail.'
Blake saw tears in the youth's eyes as he looked down at him and he caught a choking note in his voice. 'You're a good boy, Eddie,' he said. 'I'll promise that you won't have to be ashamed of me.'
'Ah, Sir James, how could I? Even in death thou wilt be a noble figure of a knight. An fairer one it hath never been given one to see, methinks,' Edward assured him as he handed him his round buckler.
Sir Richard had by now mounted, and at a signal from him that they were ready there was a fanfare from the trumpet at Sir Malud's tilt and that noble sir knight rode forward, followed by a single knight.
Blake's trumpeter now announced his master's entry and the American rode out close along the front of the grandstand, followed by Sir Richard. There was a murmur of applause for each contestant, which increased as they advanced and met before Prince Gobred's loge.
Here the four knights reined in and faced the Prince and each raised the hilt of his sword to his lips and kissed it in salute. As Gobred cautioned them to fight honorably, as true knights, and reminded them of the rules governing the encounter Blake's eyes wandered to the face of Guinalda.
The little princess sat stiffly erect, looking straight before her. She seemed very white, Blake thought, and he
