Roger here observed that the horse might grow restive at the carcase, and Mabel was excused the sight, though Walter continued to relate his exploits, and demand whether he had not won his spurs by so grand a ruse and victory.
"Truly I think Sigbert has," said his sister. "It was all his doing."
"Sigbert, an English churl! What are you thinking of, Mabel?"
"I am thinking to whom the honour is due."
"You are a mere child, sister, or you would know better. Sigbert is a very fair squire; but what is a squire's business but to put his master in the way of honour? Do not talk such folly."
Mabel was silenced, and after being conducted across the bare trampled ground among the tents of the Arabs, she re-entered the castle, where in the court groups of disarmed Arabs stood, their bournouses pulled over their brows, their long lances heaped in a corner, grim and disconsolate at their discomfiture and captivity.
A repast of stewed kid, fruit, and sherbet was prepared for her and her brother from the spoil, after which both were weary enough to throw themselves on their cushions for a long sound sleep.
Mabel slept the longer, and when she awoke, she found that the sun was setting, and that supper was nearly ready.
Walter met her just as she had arranged her dress, to bid nurse make ready her bales, for they were to start at dawn on the morrow for Tiberias. It was quite possible that the enemy might return in force to deliver their Emir. A small garrison, freshly provisioned, could hold out the castle until relief could be sent; but it would be best to conduct the two important prisoners direct to the King, to say nothing of Walter's desire to present them and to display these testimonies of his prowess before the Court of Jerusalem.
The Emir was a tall, slim, courteous Arab, with the exquisite manners of the desert. Both he and the Sheik were invited to the meal. Both looked startled and shocked at the entrance of the fair-haired damsel, and the Sheik crouched in a corner, with a savage glare in his eye like a freshly caught wild beast, though the Emir sat cross-legged on the couch eating, and talking in the lingua Franca, which was almost a native tongue, to the son and daughter of the Crusader. From him Walter learnt that King Fulk was probably at Tiberias, and this quickened the eagerness of all for a start. It took place in the earliest morning, so as to avoid the heat of the day. How different from the departure in the dark underground passage!
Horses enough had been captured to afford the Emir and the Sheik each his own beautiful steed (the more readily that the creatures could hardly have been ridden by any one else), and their parole was trusted not to attempt to escape. Walter, Mabel, Sigbert, and Roger were also mounted, and asses were found in the camp for the nurse, and the men who had been hurt in the night's surprise.
The only mischance on the way was that in the noontide halt, just as the shimmer of the Lake of Galilee met their eyes, under a huge terebinth-tree, growing on a rock, when all, except Sigbert, had composed themselves to a siesta, there was a sudden sound of loud and angry altercation, and, as the sleepers started up, the Emir was seen grasping the bridle of the horse on which the Sheik sat downcast and abject under the storm of fierce indignant words hurled at him for thus degrading his tribe and all Islam by breaking his plighted word to the Christian.
This was in Arabic, and the Emir further insisted on his prostrating himself to ask pardon, while he himself in lingua Franca explained that the man was of a low and savage tribe of Bedouins, who knew not how to keep faith.
Walter broke out in loud threats, declaring that the traitor dog ought to be hung up at once on the tree, or dragged along with hands tied behind him; but Sigbert contented himself with placing a man at each side of his horse's head, as they proceeded on their way to the strongly fortified town of the ancient Herods, perched at the head of the dark gray Lake of Galilee, shut in by mountain peaks. The second part of the journey was necessarily begun in glowing heat, for it was most undesirable to have to spend a night in the open country, and it was needful to push on to a fortified hospice or monastery of St. John, which formed a half-way house.
Weary, dusty, athirst, they came in sight of it in the evening; and Walter and Roger rode forward to request admittance. The porter begged them to wait when he heard that the party included women and Saracen prisoners; and Walter began to storm. However, a few moments more brought a tall old Knight Hospitalier to the gate, and he made no difficulties as to lodging the Saracens in a building at the end of the Court, where they could be well guarded; and Mabel and her nurse were received in a part of the precincts appropriated to female pilgrims.
It was a bare and empty place, a round turret over the gateway, with a stone floor, and a few mats rolled up in the corner, mats which former pilgrims had not left in an inviting condition.
However, the notions of comfort of the twelfth century were not exacting. Water to wash away the dust of travel was brought to the door, and was followed by a substantial meal on roasted kid and thin cakes of bread. Sigbert came up with permission for the women to attend compline, though only strictly veiled; and Mabel knelt in the little cool cryptlike chapel, almost like the late place of her escape, and returned thanks for the deliverance from their recent peril.
Then, fresh mats and cushions having been supplied, the damsel and her nurse slept profoundly, and were only roused by a bell for a mass in the darkness just before dawn, after which they again set forth, the commander of the Hospice himself, and three or four knights, accompanying them, and conversing familiarly with the Emir on the current interests of Palestine.
About half-way onward, the glint and glitter of spears was seen amid a cloud of dust on the hill-path opposite. The troop drew together on their guard, though, as the Hospitalier observed, from the side of Tiberias an enemy could scarcely come. A scout was sent forward to reconnoitre; but, even before he came spurring joyously back, the golden crosses of Jerusalem had been recognised, and confirmed his tidings that it was the rearguard of the army, commanded by King Fulk himself, on the way to the relief of the Castle of Gebel-Aroun.
In a brief half-hour more, young Walter de Hundberg, with his sister by his side, was kneeling before an alert, slender, wiry figure in plain chamois leather, with a worn sunburnt face and keen blue eyes-Fulk of Anjou-who had resigned his French county to lead the crusading cause in Palestine.
"Stand up, fair youth, and tell thy tale, and how thou hast forestalled our succour."
Walter told his tale of the blockaded castle, the underground passage, and the dexterous surprise of the besiegers, ending by presenting, not ungracefully, his captives to the pleasure of the King.
"Why, this is well done!" exclaimed Fulk. "Thou art a youth of promise, and wilt well be a prop to our grandson's English throne. Thou shalt take knighthood from mine own hand as thy prowess well deserveth. And thou, fair damsel, here is one whom we could scarce hold back from rushing with single hand to deliver his betrothed. Sir Raymond of Courtwood, you are balked of winning thy lady at the sword's point, but thou wilt scarce rejoice the less."
A dark-eyed, slender young knight, in bright armour, drew towards Mabel, and she let him take her hand; but she was intent on something else, and exclaimed-
"Oh, sir, Sir King, let me speak one word! The guerdon should not be only my brother's. The device that served us was-our squire's."