“Cease your mockings, sir,” said Heliodore despairingly.  “I am she you seek.”

“’Tis Musa seeks you, not I, Lady.”

“Then, sir, he seeks in vain, for know that ere he finds I die.  Oh! sir, I know you have a noble heart; be pitiful and let us go.  I’ll tell you all the truth.  Olaf Red-Sword yonder and I have long been affianced.  Blind though he is, he sought me through great dangers, aye, and found me.  Would you part us at the last?  In the name of the God we both worship, and of your mother, I pray you let us go.”

“By the Prophet, that I would do, Lady, only then I fear me that I should let my head go from its shoulders also.  There are too many in this secret for it to bide there long if I did as you desire.  Nay, you must to the Emir, all three of you—­not Musa, but to his rival, Obaidallah, who loves him little, and by the decree of the Caliph once again rules Egypt.  Be sure that in a matter between you and Musa you will meet with justice from Obaidallah.  Come now, fearing nothing, to where we may find you all garments more befitting to your station than those mummer’s robes.”

So a guard was formed round us, and we went.  As my feet touched the quay I heard a sound of angry voices, followed by groans and a splash in the water.

“What is that?” I asked of Yusuf.

“I think, General, that your servants from the Diana have settled some account that they had with the drunken dog who was so good as to bark out your name to me.  But, with your leave, I will not look to make sure.”

“God pardon him!  As yet I cannot,” I muttered, and marched on.

We stood, whether on that day or another I do not know, in some hall of judgment.  Martina whispered to me that a small, dark man was seated in the chair of state, and about him priests and others.  This was the Emir Obaidallah.  Musa, that had been Emir, who, she said, was fat and sullen, was there also, and whenever his glance fell upon Heliodore I felt her shiver at my side.  So was the Patriarch Politian who pleaded our cause.  The case was long, so long that, being courteous as ever, they gave us cushions to sit on, also, in an interval, food and sherbet.

Musa claimed Heliodore as his slave.  An officer who prosecuted claimed that Allah having given me, their enemy and a well-known general who had done them much damage, into their hands, I should be put to death.  Politian answered on behalf of all of us, saying that we had harmed no man.  He added that as there was a truce between the Christians and the Moslems, I could not be made to suffer the penalties of war in a time of peace, who had come to Egypt but to seek a maid to whom I was affianced.  Moreover, that even if it were so, the murder of prisoners was not one of those penalties.

The Emir listened to all but said little.  At length, however, he asked whether we were willing to become Moslems, since if so he thought that we might go free.  We answered that we were not willing.