"Hush! Let us watch it. Mark well its course. See what influences move it, which of the planets will draw it. Hush! Look well!"

Two old men were whispering to each other as they stood and gazed into the skies. All the rest of the world was asleep. And they, wrapped about in their long cloaks, were like two tiny black dots lost in the wide spaces of the night; their whispers only made the stillness greater. There was not even a breeze, the sheep lay fast asleep, the tents stood quiet, and the great mountains rose silent and black, with their high heads far away among the stars. The stars were clear and bright, sparkling to one another. As all night long they swung across the heavens, now alone, now side by side or in groups, it was as if they spoke together in the only voice or language there was in all the world. The two old men stood hour after hour watching them. At dawn, when the morning stars had sung together their last song, a little breeze crept up, the flowers waked, and the sheep shook themselves and Ayûb went to his tent door. But there was no one to be seen, for the old men had gone.

A religious leader of the Mohammedans. (Photograph furnished by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

As the sun rose over the mountains, Ayûb threw himself on the ground with his face toward Mecca, and he prayed to Allah with a new fervor: "Praise be to God, the Lord of creatures, the merciful and gracious. Thee we serve. . . . Lead us in the right way, the way of those to whom Thou hast shown mercy." Ayûb was happy. A new sound was rising from the earth that morning to greet the sun, a new baby's cry,—for in the night a son had been born to him. And it was because of the baby that old Ibrahim and Al-Kindi had been searching the face of the sky, trying to find out from the stars what his future was to be.

Ayûb was all impatience to know about it. And he wandered about restlessly until the old men should have cast the baby's horoscope with the help of the ancient writings, and should come to tell him what they had found. At last he saw them coming, their long camel's-hair cloaks wrapped about them and a kerchief, or Tailasân, over their turbans to protect their heads from the sun.

"Well come indeed are ye!" Ayûb greeted them and bowed low, and at the door of his tent placed rugs for them to sit upon. In spite of his impatience he ordered bowls of honeyed milk for their refreshment. Then at last he spoke, "Have pity, I pray. Forgive my haste, but tell me, will all be well with my son?"

Ibrahim of the long gray beard, the older of the two, answered, and slowly and carefully told him the meaning of the stars. At first the star of the child's life moved serenely on its way, he said, but then a stranger-influence crossed its path. It seemed without harm at first, but always it lurked close by, casting a threatening shadow. Sorrow or danger or both it meant, for alas! it was an evil influence; but what the end would be no man could tell.

Ayûb's face went white as the distant snow on the tops of the Kara Dagh, and when he tried to speak his tongue was dry as if he had come a long ride across the desert. "It is the will of Allah," he tried to say as usual, but he ended, "And there is then no escape?"

Al-Kindi answered him. "Evil is ever to be avoided, unless indeed it can be turned into good."

"But how avoid evil when one knows not even its name?"

"It is therefore that we speak to thee," Al-Kindi answered again.

"Ah, ye know it!" Ayûb exclaimed. "Tell me then its name!"

The two old men looked at each other, and each waited for the other. Finally Ibrahim spoke, "Know then, O Ayûb, that the star which crossed his path—alas, it is well known!—is the star that rose long since, the year when first the Franks defiled our land."

"The Franks!" Ayûb sprang to his feet. "The Franks! The cursed dogs! Tell me not that. Already my cup of hatred overflows."

The old men bowed their heads; they knew what good reason Ayûb had to hate the Franks. For the Franks had taken his father's flocks and herds and killed his brother and driven him to seek safety for his family in the East, far from the home of his people. For the Franks were the Crusaders who had come to win back from the Saracens the sacred places in the Holy Land. Seventy years before they had conquered Jerusalem and driven the infidel, as they called him, from the region, and still their king ruled over it and over many cities that had belonged to the Saracen caliph. And in these cities and along the coast they had destroyed many homes and killed many people.

Ayûb paced back and forth before his tent, his fingers clutching at the air, as he remembered these things and many more. "The Franks, the dogs of Franks!" he muttered. "Always because of them we are at war; because of them, prince Zangi was murdered in his sleep, and Nur-ud-din and the noble young Saladin risk their lives and the lives of all our youths in wars. But I swear it," he raised his hand to the sky, "my son shall not go to war. Since the stars have warned me, I shall keep him safe. He shall not fight the Frank. I will make him a wise man and a scholar. So shall we flee from fate."

The old men rose and held out their hands to him. "Wisdom is with thee. May Allah grant thee thy desire."

From that day on there was one idea in Ayûb's mind—to protect Yusuf, his little son, from the Franks. In these far-away mountains of the East he was at present safe, but Ayûb had already planned to leave these mountains and go back westward to settle again on his father's land. For now Nur-ud-din had retaken that country and driven the Franks farther off toward the coast. And Ayûb's soul longed for the house of his fathers. Yet, to be safe, he put off his going year by year until Yusuf was eight years old, and until noble Saladin, following after Nur-ud-din, had won still more victories.

Yusuf by that time had learned many things. He knew how to ride a horse as well as his father, and could help pitch a tent and pack a saddlebag. He could throw a spear and shoot an arrow, and already he loved to hunt the deer and even the wild panther with his father. One other lesson he was learning thoroughly,—to hate the Franks, or at least the Franks as he pictured them. For Ayûb kept talking to him about them. "Fear the Frank as thou wouldst fear Satan, the Evil One," he said over and over, "for he is a child of darkness and all his ways are black. Dread him like a panther in his fury, like a tiger whose claws drip blood. Allah's curse be on him and on his children after him! And thou, do thou beware! The very stars cry out to warn thee from him." So Ayûb painted the picture in the worst colors he could think of, until little Yusuf, without knowing it, was seeing a strange monster of a Frank. He saw him big and bony, with a broad panther-like face, cruel, and hung about with wild black hair. His hands had clawlike fingers red with blood, and he was black all over. He was black and fearsome-looking, like a strange man Yusuf had once seen when his father took him to town to one of the great fairs. He never told anyone of his picture of this demon-Frank of his; and all the time that he was half afraid of him he was half longing to see him, to find out what he would do.

This is a Persian painting, or miniature, where things are not pictured realistically but yet give the fire of the chase and the charm of the landscape. (Photograph furnished by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)

For even at eight Yusuf was very brave; his life in the wild mountains and his riding and hunting had made him fearless beyond most boys of his age. On the day when they started on the long journey to the Lebanon Mountains his father gave him his own falcon to carry perched on his wrist to help him in the hunting. For on the way they had to stop constantly to hunt for deer and game to give themselves food. Yusuf was of course under orders never to go out of sight of his father or old Ismaîl, the herdsman, but one day when they were nearly at their journey's end he saw some creature and, forgetting orders and every thought of fear, he started after it up the mountainside, and before he knew it he was lost.

He stopped and looked about. He and his horse and falcon were alone in the strange mountains, and he did not know which way to turn. Suddenly his falcon gave a scream. There, bounding toward them, was a leopard. Yusuf tried all in a minute to unleash his falcon and reach for his bow. But his fingers shook. Already the leopard was close and about to spring at his horse's neck. Then an arrow whizzed through the air, and the leopard fell back, pierced through the head.

Yusuf looked up and saw a lone horseman. He was not one of their own band—he could tell that in an instant; and when the man came close to him, he saw that he was indeed some one very different. He had white skin like an angel and fair hair and blue eyes full of kindness. He wore a shirt of mail, as other men did, but over it was a long coat of silk covered with many golden crosses. Yusuf stared at him as if he had really dropped from heaven. But the man touched him to make sure he was unhurt and spoke to him in a deep pleasant voice, using his own language. "Hast thou any harm?" he said.

"No," Yusuf shook his head, and then stammered, "I—I did not see him. But for thy good arrow, my poor horse—I—I—it is a shame to me—My father—what would he say to me?"

The stranger smiled. "Are boys of thy race, then, expected to hunt alone even from their cradles?"

Yusuf shook his head. "It is my fault. I lost my way."

"As wiser heads than thine have done, as I am proof. Yet," the man looked at the dead leopard, "perchance God willed it so, or there might have been a brave boy the less. But come, shall we ride together and see if we can find thy father?"

This picture, made at the end of the twelfth century and taken from a manuscript in the British Museum, shows the dress of a Crusader, with the chain armor and the surcoat ornamented with crosses

They rode in what Yusuf thought the right direction, but for many long hours they saw nothing but the many wild flowers of the region, which delighted the stranger. Yusuf was growing tired and hungry when at last his companion stopped and took from his wallet some sort of biscuit, broke one and handed half to him. Also he gave him wine to drink from a flask. "So," he said with his pleasant smile, "having broken bread and drunk together we are no longer enemies, but friends. Christian and infidel, we are friends. Is it not so?"

For answer Yusuf ran off and gathered an armful of flowers,—cyclamen, anemones, daffodils growing wild in the mountains,—and thrust them into the man's hands. "For you," he said shyly, "for Yusuf's friend. And thank you for saving my horse."

"Surely a brave, fine lad," the man murmured in his own language. "I would I could take him to Arnaud."

A sound had caught Yusuf's quick ear, and off in the distance he pointed to horsemen. "Look," he cried, "my father. Come!"

The stranger hesitated, then shook his head. "Nay, it were wiser not. Thy people do not love a Christian. Ride on, and I'll watch thee to safety. But remember, Yusuf and Renaud part as friends. Farewell. Forget me not."

The boy lingered to look wistfully into his face. "Yusuf will not forget. Never."

When, flushed and excited, he told his story to his father his surprise was great, for first Ayûb shook like a dry leaf on a tree, then he raged like a mountain brook, then hugged his little son to his breast. "A Frank! A Frank! Yet art thou safe. Not this time then was thy fate come. Yet a Frank! My son, my son!"

"But no," Yusuf interrupted, "he was not a Frank. For he was as white as any angel; he was not black." He stopped short. The familiar picture of his demon-Frank was in his mind, and now for the first time he doubted it; perhaps it was not true. Yet he said nothing. And though his father would not let him out of his sight, and talked more than ever against the Franks, Renaud stayed warm and friendly in his memory.