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"Yes: he rode in last night to see if all was well." "What! The Emir came here?" "Yes, and praised thy servant for all that he had done. He gave him, too, other commands.
"Thou in his favour! Thou art nought to him!" replied Iskender with a sudden burst of spite. Elias was about to answer angrily when the subject of their speech appeared. Both sprang to their feet expectantly. But the Emîr, with a blunt "Good-morning," passed them by and mounted the horse which stood in waiting before the door.
After sundry adventures, Huon sets out on a journey to Babylon, and seeks an audience with the Emir. He tells of his arrival at what he describes as the castle, and how, after long parley with the porter, the drawbridge is let down and the great gate opened, and he finds himself in an arched way, with a series of portcullises showing their teeth overhead.
He therefore remained in his camp before Acre, while his knights went on pilgrimage to Jerusalem, and, while there, he narrowly escaped becoming a seventh royal victim, to the Crusade. The heat of the weather had affected his health, and he was lying on his couch, only covered with a single garment, when a messenger approached with letters purporting to be from the Emir of Joppa.
Every man, mathematician, artist, soldier, or merchant, looks with confidence for some traits and talents in his own child, which he would not dare to presume in the child of a stranger. The Orientalists are very orthodox on this point. "Take a thorn-bush," said the emir Abdel-Kader, "and sprinkle it for a whole year with water, it will yield nothing but thorns.
The young Emir laughed again, and laid his dark hand firmly upon his companion's arm, disdaining to look back to see if they were followed, but riding forward at a walk towards where the narrow street opened into a wider part, upon reaching which they saw upon their left a party of ten or a dozen more of the dark horsemen riding slowly along as if in search of plunder, for several had various objects thrown across their saddlebows, which looked like spoil, and their wandering looks at once turned to the approaching pair.
"My Emîr is busy," he explained, assuming cheerfulness as a good shield from questions, which might easily have probed too far into his cause for grief. For the same reason he forbore all mention of the purposed visit of his Emîr to the Mission. "I am free to-day, and so returned to see if I could help thee in the house."
The vagabonds had bartered for him in Italy, giving a fair girl whom they had with them in exchange; likewise he said he was of princely birth, but had fallen into slavery some two years since, when a fine galley governed by his father, an Emir or prince of Egypt, had fought with another coming from Genoa in Italy.
From his position the Wanderer could see the advancing caravans; but as the spectacle would consume the afternoon, he called his three attendants, and issued directions for the entertainment of the Emir in the evening; this done, he cast himself upon the rug, and gave rein to his curiosity, thinking, not unreasonably, to find in what would pass before him something bearing on the subject ever present in his mind.
"This being so," declared the Emir, "honour and good faith towards Bishop Addo require that Bishop Gaddo be kept captive with all possible strictness. Yet bolts may be burst, fetters may be filed, walls may be scaled, doors may be broken through. Better to enchain the captive's soul, binding him with invisible bonds, and searing out of him the very wish to escape.
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