CHAPTER VII

Godwin turned and looked back at them. In the moon's light he was an uncanny figure, standing on lofty immaterial nothingness.

"Well," he said testily, "come on. Can't you see it's all right?"

They gaped at him, eyes round as the declining moon. "How are you accomplishing that, comrade?" asked the Saracen.

"Accomplishing what? I'm only standing here."

"Yes, but on air, for the love of Allah! How can you stand on air?"

"I happen," said Godwin, distinctly and loudly, as though he were speaking to an imbecile. "I happen to be standing on the sands of the desert."

"He's mad, my child," groaned El Sareuk.

"If he is, he's doing as neat a job of being crazy as I ever saw," retorted Ramizail. "Does his insanity affect the pull of the earth?"

"Hmm," said the Hadji, "you're right. Well, let me join him in his madness. But if I vanish abruptly, niece, do you go back and sit by that spring until the oasis sinks of its own accord. I would not have your lovely brains splattered over a league of hot sand." He walked gingerly out to Godwin's side. "He's right, it's the desert!" he shouted.

She looked at the two of them, standing there in midair shaking hands solemnly with each other. She grinned. "Of course, it's a mirage, or a trick!" She went to them, treading on what seemed space, and it turned to solid dunes beneath her sandals. She looked back, and the oasis was there, settled firmly in the heart of the desert, with sleepy Yellow-eyes just flying out of the trees. "A neat stunt," said Ramizail. "Godwin, you're cleverer than I thought, and as brave as forty lions, to have tried such a thing!"

"A man takes his chances," said Godwin modestly.

They mounted and rode off toward the west, toward El Iskandariya and the ship full of rats, rats full of fleas, fleas full of bubonic plague. As they went, Ramizail nagged at Godwin, and Godwin tried unhappily to remember what he had done with the ring of Solomon. But he could not do it. He patted himself all over, and even looked into his Saracen-style helmet, which was a round shining steel cap surmounted by the golden figure of a rampant lion and resting upon a headpiece of soft white cloth that protected his neck from the sun; but he could not discover it. All he remembered was that he had put it in a safe place, a place that would never be farther from him than he could reach.

As the moon touched the faraway dunes, the sun came up. Gilded sands grew fiery beneath the hooves of their animals, and the _khamsin_, that was like the breath of a devil drunk on hot mulled blood, arose to torture them.

A wide-breasted dune stretched before them. They topped the rise and Ramizail gave a cry, while the men checked their steeds and glanced at each other. "Another illusion?" asked Godwin.

"Who can tell? There are more beasts in the desert than are known to man," shrugged El Sareuk.

In the hollow formed by four dunes' meeting stood an enormous lion, all orange-red of hue, facing them with black mane bristling up like the spines of a porcupine. The odd thing about it, the thing that made it seem somewhat out of the ordinary even to men who had looked on a thousand wonders in their time, was the pair of broad silver wings that sprang from its shoulder blades and spread themselves high to left and right.

"Winged lion," said Ramizail. "No, I cannot call it to mind. I doubt one's been seen before, at least in Egypt."

* * * * *

The lion growled, crouched, and launched itself through the air straight at Godwin's head. El Sareuk shouted, "Allah defend us!" and leaned over in the saddle to slash at it with his scimitar; while Godwin hauled his fifty-pound broadsword from its leathern sheath and flung the point swiftly up before his face. The lion, its gigantic wings flapping like a vulture's, soared up and over him. Yellow-eyes the falcon left his shoulder, giving vent to shrill wrath at this horror of the desert.

"Coming back! Diving!" roared the Hadji. Godwin flung himself from a sitting start, straight over the head of his stallion. The extended claws of the terrible beast grazed his back as he fell and ripped four gashes in the silk of his outer robe. Yellow-eyes beat her wings about the lion's head, trying to confuse and harry it.

Still holding his weapon, Godwin of England rolled over on his back. Flying sand had sprayed his face and a grain had lodged in his left eye, making him squint and curse. The lion hovered over him, then dropped like a boulder, ignoring the peregrine. Godwin twitched the point of the sword upward and at the first prickling contact with its belly the monster screeched and shot forward beyond him.

El Sareuk made his horse leap, and stood by Godwin till he rose. "It's coming back," he said. "You are its target, obviously, lad. 'Tis no natural beast, I'll take oath on the Koran!"

The winged red lion came rushing at Godwin, half on sand and half in air, giving itself little pushes with its earth-touching paws. Godwin half-knelt, waited till it was within striking range, then gave a mighty slash with his iron sword. He missed, but the strange being, startled, rose up. Godwin saw one massive hind leg coming straight at him. He had no time to lift the broadsword again; neither could he drop in time to avoid a crushing stroke of the leg. Quicker than thought he let go his sword and flung his arms before him.

The leg struck him on the chest, but to ease the force he had already wrapped his swift arms about it. The lion beat its way upward, and before he knew it Godwin, clinging like death to the hind leg, looked down and found himself a hundred feet over the desert. El Sareuk's astonished shout and Ramizail's piercing scream of terror came up to him, dim and half-heard in the rushing wind of their passage. The falcon followed, skirling her anger.

The lion paused and writhed round on itself like a common bazaar cat going after a louse. Godwin swung his body up and kicked it on the nose. It coughed dismally as one sharp spur caught its tender snout and gashed a bloody trench. It snapped at him again, its big teeth missing by a fraction. Yellow-eyes thrust her beak at its eyes and it turned from Godwin to bite out at her.

Godwin tightened the grip of his left arm and let go with his right. He drew his curved Persian dagger from its thonged sheath and judged his blow. Then he struck.

The lion, its neck slit from ear to gullet, spewed blood and uttered a horrible gurgling bellow. Slowly it began to sink toward the earth. Godwin risked a quick look down. His head reeled. He was still a good eighty feet up. If the lion died too soon, he would be smashed to a pulp beneath its dead weight. He had thought only of slaying the thing, not of how he might land safely. He swore vividly.

"This proves Ramizail's contention that I have a one-track brain!" The winged beast drifted down in spirals, its hindquarters drooping, its wings feebly beating the air, and its head jerking back and forth. Godwin held his breath. It folded its wings and plummeted straight for sickening yards, then making a last try at rising, extended the pinions once more. Godwin saw that he was no more than ten feet off the ground. He loosed his hold. The dunes came up with a rush to meet him and he lit and rolled over. The lion above gave a final roar and crumpled, smacking the sand a yard from Godwin's feet. The warrior arose and wiped his forehead with a bloodied hand, as Yellow-eyes alit on his shoulder, ruffling her feathers.

"Whew! Lady, _that_ was no illusion."

El Sareuk brought him his sword and charger, and mounting, he turned its head again to the west.