SALADIN.

What further?

1ST MAMELUKE.

Messengers
Of good are paid. Am I to be the first
Whom Saladin has learnt to pay with words?
The first to whom he proves ungenerous?

SALADIN.

Go, take a purse.

1ST MAMELUKE.

No, no--not now. Not if
You'd give them all to me.

SALADIN.

All? Hold, young man!
Come hither. Take these purses--take these two.
What, going? And shall I be conquered thus
In generosity? for surely 'tis
More difficult for this man to refuse
Than for the Sultan to bestow. Then, here
Here, Ibrahim! Shall I be tempted, just
Before my death, to be a different man?
Shall Saladin not die like Saladin?
Then wherefore has he lived like Saladin?

(_Enter a second Mameluke_.)

2ND MAMELUKE.

Hail, Sultan!
SALADIN.

If you come and bring the news----

2ND MAMELUKE.

That the Egyptian convoy is arrived.

SALADIN.

I know it.

2ND MAMELUKE.

Then I come too late.

SALADIN.

Too late?
Wherefore too late? There, for your tidings take
A purse or two.

2ND MAMELUKE.

Say three.
SALADIN.

You reckon well;
But take them.

2ND MAMELUKE.

A third messenger will come
Ere long, if he be able.
SALADIN.

Wherefore so?

2ND MAMELUKE.

He may perhaps, ere this, have brok'n his neck.
We three, when we had heard of the approach
Of the rich caravan, mounted our steeds,
And galloped hitherward. The foremost fell,
Then I was first, and I continued so
Into the town; but that sly fellow there,
Who knew the streets----

SALADIN.

But where is he who fell?

Go