Arab countries -- Fiction; Crusades -- Fiction; Great Britain -- History -- Medieval period, 1066-1485 -- Fiction
So they took them up, dead and living together, and threw them into the
water, where they sank, nor did one of the wounded Saracens pray them
for mercy. Then they served their own dead likewise, but those that
were only wounded they took ashore. This done, the tall man advanced to
the cabin and said:
“Lady, come, we are ready to start upon our journey.”
Having no choice, Rosamund obeyed him, remembering as she went how from
a scene of battle and bloodshed she had been brought aboard that ship
to be carried she knew not whither, which now she left in a scene of
battle and bloodshed to be carried she knew not whither.
“Oh!” she cried aloud, pointing to the corpses they hurled into the
deep, “ill has it gone with these who stole me, and ill may it go with
you also, servant of Al-je-bal.”
But the tall man answered nothing, as followed by the weeping Marie and
the prince Hassan, he led her to the boat.
Soon they reached the shore, and here they tore Marie from her, nor did
Rosamund ever learn what became of her, or whether or no this poor
woman found her husband whom she had dared so much to seek.
Chapter XI.
The City of Al-Je-Bal
“I pray you have done,” said Godwin, “it is but a scratch from the
beast’s claws. I am ashamed that you should put your hair to such vile
uses. Give me a little water.”
He asked it of Wulf, but Masouda rose without a word and fetched the
water, in which she mingled wine. Godwin drank of it and his faintness
left him, so that he was able to stand up and move his arms and legs.
“Why,” he said, “it is nothing; I was only shaken. That lioness did not
hurt me at all.”
“But you hurt the lioness,” said Wulf, with a laugh. “By St. Chad a
good thrust!” and he pointed to the long sword driven up to the hilt in
the brute’s breast. “Why, I swear I could not have made a better
myself.”
“I think it was the lion that thrust,” answered Godwin. “I only held
the sword straight. Drag it out, brother, I am still too weak.”
So Wulf set his foot upon the breast of the lion and tugged and tugged
until at length he loosened the sword, saying as he strained at it:
“Oh! what an Essex hog am I, who slept through it all, never waking
until Masouda seized me by the hair, and I opened my eyes to see you
upon the ground with this yellow beast crouched on the top of you like
a hen on a nest egg. I thought that it was alive and smote it with my
sword, which, had I been fully awake, I doubt if I should have found
the courage to do. Look,” and he pushed the lioness’s head with his
foot, whereon it twisted round in such a fashion that they perceived
for the first time that it only hung to the shoulders by a thread of
skin.
“I am glad you did not strike a little harder,” said Godwin, “or I
should now be in two pieces and drowned in my own blood, instead of in
that of this dead brute,” and he looked ruefully at his burnous and
hauberk, that were soaked with gore.
“Yes,” said Wulf, “I never thought of that. Who would, in such a
hurry?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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