Leopards Are For England - ebook

Leopards Are For England

_That malign and magic jewel the Sphinx Emerald comes on
the scene to play its part in a stirring drama of the Crusades._

THE man in the tent was bull-necked, of massive build yet not too short, his features alight with keen intelligence. Except for a long mustache, he was clean-shaven. The fiery energy manifest in him was amazing; yet he was ill now, and had long been ill. His voice, rapidly dictating, broke now and again with impatience; he was a person of astounding power but scarcely of poise. He wore a single cool, armless garment that came to his knees and was ornamented with the heraldic device of a lion–the Lion of Flanders, in fact. Despite the afternoon breeze off the sea, the heat was intense and deadly.

“That will do,” he concluded curtly. “Now I want Fitzalan–Sir James Fitzalan.”

The two secretaries, one French, one Arab, departed. The man went to the tent entrance, wide open for air, and stared out. He was barely thirty-five, hard-muscled, alert. He looked at the sandy curve of shore a quarter-mile distant toward the city. Tents, huts, shelters backed it; men by the hundred were in the water or lolling naked on the sand.

Moving outside a little, the man turned and gazed in the other direction. Here was a tremendous plain running into the eastern horizon, dotted here and there with trees, with oleander bushes in gay flower, but showing hereabouts no sign of life. This was part of the historic Plain of Esdraelon, lying between Askalon and St. Jean d’Acre–a plain that had been repeatedly, from historic times, flushed with the blood of armies, the deceptively easy-looking plain that led into Palestine.

Squinting into the distance, the man found what he sought–a mere glint of light. It was there day and night, a glint that came from sun or moon on helm and shield; a pin-prick of reflected radiance, cruel and terrible, merciless emblem of Asia. This corner of naked plain was hemmed in by the united forces of all hither Asia and Egypt. For the first time in history, the Arab people had no divisions and were united in a _jihad_, a holy war against the Christian, under one leader who was superb and unconquerable.

Another man came from the horse-camp to the tent, a younger man with worn features, deep straight eyes, hollow cheeks. The armed guards saluted him; like them, he wore a small cross on the right shoulder of his mantle, tokening the Crusades. The big man in the entrance smiled; with warming, kindling gaze he took the newcomer by the arm and turned into the tent with him.

“Holá, Fitzalan! Did the swim help you?”

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