"What do you want, offspring of a leprous unwed camel?" "May you live a thousand years, Mufaddal, my brother." "This is a noble sentiment. Did you interrupt my eating--that is to say, my meditation--to wish me long life, imbecile?" The sorcerer looked meditatively at his left forefinger, which turned into a blue snake and hissed at the big dirty man across the laden cloth. Mufaddal jumped and said hastily, "This, of course, is only my rough manner of speaking, Heraj, and naturally you know you are my favorite brother and may come in any time you like." "Yes. Well, I was going to say, Mufaddal, that complications are lifting their ugly heads in this business of the plague ship." "What? Are the rats not loaded into the hold, and the job accomplished with but seventeen fellahin bitten? Did we not slay the seventeen before they could come near anyone? And is the ship not as sound as any ship that sails the Mediterranean, having new sails and a new mast, and her belly caulked no later than last month?" "Ah, very true," agreed Heraj. "Does every rat not carry at least one flea, cleverly infected with the plague by your own subtle methods?" "Fleas and rats are as deadly as any Saracen blade, and the grisly death they carry will spread far and wide when they are let off the ship on the coasts of England." "And lastly, is all not in readiness to sail come the day after tomorrow?" "True," said Heraj gloomily. "But we can't send it out before then, as our chosen crew will not be assembled till that morning, especially the far-experienced Nubian slave who is coming from Tripoli to guide the ship on its perilous course; and by the wrath of Eblis, you and I may not live to see the dawn of that day, near though you deem it!" "What are you talking about?" roared Mufaddal. "I just had a message from a friend who happens to be a hawk in his present incarnation. He tells me that Godwin is coming." "This is terrible news indeed," said Mufaddal, fiercely mimicking the sorcerer's worried tones. "I quake with fright. I throw myself on the infinite mercy of Allah." He rose and flexed his arms, that were each as thick as a youth's body. "Heraj, who in the name of the seven hells is Godwin?" "You may well ask," said Heraj, even more gloomily than before. "Nobody seems to know exactly. I can't get a line on his history before a month ago, when he rode out of Jaffa in company with a renegade Saracen chieftain called El Sareuk and a girl named Ramizail. But he's a brawny young champion, whatever his antecedents, and his girl controls the djinn." * * * * * Mufaddal sat down on the floor with vast violence. His dark face turned purple. His yellow teeth showed in a grin of sudden terror. "I betake me to Allah! _That_ Ramizail?" "Yes, that one. Well, this hawk says--" "Can you understand the hawk tongue?"