“remove the gates of thy stable to another side.”—arabic proverb.
an ominous dawning.
misty, silvery shadows fleeing before the coming light left no mark upon the crimson desert, which stretched to the east and west a desolate unbroken plain, to the north and south in motionless, blood-red waves of sand. sunrays, yellow, orange, red, spread like gigantic searchlights across the sky from behind a mass of clouds which the west wind had driven eastward and piled low down upon the horizon.
copper-coloured masses against a background of green and rose and dun, concealing the end or the beginning of an arch of clouds, which flared, a signal of disaster, a pennant of death, blood-red, high across the sapphire firmament, where one great star still defied its enemy—the dawn.
over the empty plain, under the ominous arc, straight towards the stupendous sunrise fled the three camels, leaving a dead-black trail stretching back as far as eye could see.
namlah the body-woman glanced over her shoulder at the morning star and touched the amulet of good luck which hung about her neck. she looked round at the ill-omened sky and back over the miles across which the huge beasts had raced, at the almost incredible speed to which the camel can attain when urged to its greatest effort. scarcely a word had the riders said since the sky had lightened when, wondering if the alarm had been given in the camp, they had turned to see if yussuf overtook or if zarah pursued them through the misty, silvery shadows.
ralph and helen rode side by side, their dromedaries[307] almost touching, as they raced death for their lives, their liberty, their love. namlah, the desert born, rode ahead, steering her course unerringly by the great star.
she glanced back at helen’s face, showing death white in the shadows of the passing night and distressed at the signs of a great fatigue, anxious to advise, to help, touched her camel upon the right shoulder, so that it turned to the right in a wide circle, whilst its companions, ignoring or totally unconscious of their leader’s change of route, and utterly lacking in imagination, reasoning power or sense of any kind, forged ahead on a non-stop run.
once more her keen eyes swept the vast plain which lay behind and across which, like a band of jet on damask cloth, showed the path made by the camels in their flight. she made no sound as she shaded her eyes and stared and stared into the far distance, but touched the amulet for good luck which hung at her own neck and, leaning far forward, touched the amulet which had been fastened in a tuft of hair on the camel’s left shoulder, thereby guaranteeing its safe arrival at the journey’s end.
“‘o thou who troublest thyself about the care of others, to whom hast thou left thine own cares?’” she muttered the proverb, then prayed to allah as she smote the camel so that it finished the half circle and formed up with its companions, which utterly ignored its return.
“what is it, namlah?”
helen leant sideways as she spoke to the body-servant, in whose eyes she had seen the light of a great fear, then turned and looked back in the direction in which the woman pointed. she turned to her lover and pointed back along the path by which they had come, to where, hardly discernible and as a mere speck in the far distance, something moved.
“we’re followed, ra!” she cried, leaning towards him and stretching out her hand.
“i know we are, sweetheart. i’ve known it for some time. let’s hope it’s yussuf.” he smiled at namlah and shouted across to her. “we’ll put up a good fight,[308] little sister, if they overtake us, and i swear they shall never take you two women alive.”
“kismet! excellency,” cried namlah. “perchance ’tis the blind one riding to join us, though verily there is but lulah who could overtake these three beasts, the swiftest in njed, and the black mare yussuf does not ride. i pray thee let me have speech with zarah if ’tis she, before death claims either the one or the other of us, likewise, if so be it is the will of allah, allow me to approach the tyrant.”
she spat as she made her request, and guided her camel close to helen’s and prayed to allah, with frequent interludes of cursing, as they fled like the wind towards the spot whence they would turn due north and, if allah the merciful answered the prayers of the body-woman, would overtake a caravan journeying towards oman or hareek.
“’tis the birds of prey, excellency,” she said later, “calling as they ever call at dawn. perchance from the heavens the eagles and the vultures spy food with which to break their fast.”
helen looked up at the sky, across which drifted and wheeled vultures, eagles, hawks, and shook her head and smiled at the dusky little woman who lied to allay her fears.
“nay! namlah, it is a voice, it is—listen!”
faintly but clearly the cry came to them upon the morning wind. helen looked at her lover, and namlah bent and touched the amulet upon the camel’s shoulder so as to hide her eyes. the battle-cry, derisive, challenging, even at a great distance, left no doubt as to who pursued them.
but namlah was of the desert, with the eyes of a hawk and the tenacity of those whose daily life is one long fight against the greatest odds. she shaded her eyes suddenly and stared ahead. she pointed and laughed and kicked her camel vigorously.
but there was no sign of living thing in all the desert to ralph and helen when they looked to where she pointed.
[309]
“i see nothing, namlah.”
“yonder, excellency! see you not a band of men moving many, many miles away. allah! their backs are towards us. they go from us.” she turned in her saddle and shook her fist at the speck in the far distance, then put her hand to her ear. “allah! ’tis verily a horse! faster! faster! excellencies, urge the camels, they but crawl, urge them, for in yon band of men, be they robbers or starving bedouins, lies our salvation.”
infinitesimal spots upon the desert, which, ridged and wrinkled, lay like the outstretched hand of fate, they urged the dromedaries until they fled to outstrip the wind, under the sky of violent colouring.
“allah! open their eyes that they see us! open their ears that they hear us! excellency! excellency! is there no way by which to turn their heads towards us!” her words were lost in the rush of the tremendous speed, but helen, understanding the expressive gestures, turned and shouted to her lover.
the camels paid no heed when the desert rang with the double report of trenchard’s revolver, but abdul, who journeyed in the company of the bedouins who had succoured him, in the hope of learning news of his white master in hareek, turned in his saddle and looked back, whilst zarah, oblivious of the strain she was putting upon the mare, shouted the battle-cry derisively when the firing shattered the desert stillness and drove the beautiful creature at full speed over the sands, urging her with needle-pointed spear.
nor did she look back, else might she have seen fate pressing hard upon her heels.
“on the day of victory no fatigue is felt.”—arabic proverb.
like a darker shadow amongst the shadows thrown upon the desert from the ill-omened sky, rādi the bitch, the[310] swiftest greyhound whelped in hasa, loped alongside the dromedary ridden by yussuf, with “his eyes,” pillion-wise, behind him. she barely left a mark upon the sands so lightly did she run, perplexed, upon a track which held but the common scent of horse and camel. true, she ran in the wake of lulah, her stable friend, but of enemy there was no trace; therefore of what avail to spend her strength in chasing shadows by the light of the rising sun?
“his eyes” frowned when she broke away, and like an arrow from a bow set off hard upon the scent of something which had crossed the path after lulah the mare.
“she has no interest, brother.” he tapped his message upon the blind man’s shoulder. “even now she turns to follow the scent of some small beast of no account. give me the sandal of zarah the cruel, so that she holds in her fine nose the scent of the woman of whom as yet we see no sign, but whom we hunt to the death.”
yussuf sent a long, low call ringing across the sands, and rādi, with every muscle in her gaunt body trained to a hair, without checking her speed, spun round upon her hind feet and tore back in answer to it. she ran at an angle to overtake the black dromedary, whose price was above that of many rubies, and recognizing the object dangled just out of reach, leapt at the sandal, missing it by an inch; then, as trained to do, on touching the ground turned in a circle to the right and at the top of her terrific speed, still at an angle, tore towards the dromedary and launched herself straight upon its back. catching her by the throat, the dumb youth held her back, whilst, with claws clinging to the tufts of hair upon the dromedary’s haunches, the bitch fought to reach the sandal, the scent of which drove her to a veritable madness of hate and filled her with a lust to kill. she had it between her teeth when firing suddenly shattered the desert stillness, and she fought like a fury to keep it, until “his eyes,” putting out all his strength, hurled her to the ground and, clasping yussuf round the waist, leaned[311] far sideways and stared ahead. in his excitement he snatched the mihjan from the blind man’s hand and, leaning backward, smote the dromedary upon the fleshy part of its hind leg above the knee, the tenderest spot of its tough anatomy, so that with a scream of rage it increased its pace seemingly a hundredfold and tore like a hurricane of wrath upon the path, at the far end of which “his eyes” at last discerned a moving figure.
“bism ’allah!” yelled yussuf, answering the message tapped upon his shoulder. “allah the merciful delivereth the tyrant into our hands. the mare faileth, sayeth thou; the marks of her hoofs show ever deeper in the sand. whence came the firing? from zarah the cruel or from our white brother who fleeth with the women before her vengeance? nay! nay! knowest thou so little? can’st not discern the difference ’twixt a pistol and a rifle? allah strike her hand so that it is useless, and strike the mare dead so that the woman falls to the hound, who hates her even as i hate her in my blindness.”
he leaned down and called to the greyhound, exciting her with words as he pointed ahead, until, sensing an enemy at last, she shot in front of the dromedary. then, sitting erect, he lifted his mutilated face to the flaming heavens and chanted verses from the korān to the honour of allah the one and only god, who delivered the enemy into his hands:
“flight shall not profit you if ye fly from death or from slaughter, and if it would, yet shall ye not enjoy this world but a little!”
“who is he who shall defend you against god, if he is pleased to bring evil on you?”
“o lord, give her the double of our punishment; and curse her with a heavy curse!”
the sonorous words range out on the stillness, barely broken by the padding of the dromedary’s cushioned feet upon the sand, then he stopped suddenly, alert, apprehensive.
[312]
his hearing, sharpened by his blindness, had caught the sound of the drumming of a horse’s hoofs upon the sand many miles behind.
“look once more behind, little brother, methought ’twould not be long before her lover rode in pursuit. ha! thou seest one riding like a leaf before the wind. by the beard! ’tis the lion riding to find his mate! allah smite that which he bestrides so that no harm befalls him.” he turned round in the saddle and stared back along the path he could not see. “seest thou aught else behind the lion, little brother? far behind? thou seest naught! yet is there a sound of thunder in mine ears, even the sound of the hoofs of many horses tearing like the hurricane towards us.”
he listened for a moment, then turned again and stared unseeingly in front towards the figure of the woman who had blinded him. he smiled as best he could for the distortion of his mouth and threw back his head.
zarah looked back, at last, as the challenge of the battle-cry came to her on the wind, and, recognizing that speed alone would save her from the death which hunted her down, drove her spear into the mare’s hindquarters.
the exhausted beast, ridden without mercy, her satiny coat dripping, her chest asmother with foam, bounded forward under the agony of the goad, crossed her feet, stumbled, flinging zarah over her head as she crashed to her knees, then, up before the arabian could rise, turned and fled into the desert towards the east, where the sun showed above the clouds.
“one hour for thy love, one hour for thy lord.”—arabic proverb.
a mighty picture made al-asad and the stallion as they rode in the race to outstrip death. to aid the magnificent[313] beast as it tore across the plain the nubian lay close to its satin neck, guiding with knees and hand, coaxing and urging with his voice as it fled ventre à terre, silken mane and tail flying like banners in the wind.
there was naught but vision to tell him if he gained upon the dog or not, and even in that he dare not put his trust. for how was he to tell if the figures before him, the camel with its two riders, the dog ahead, the girl upon the black mare still farther off, and the three camels, mere dots upon the horizon, became gradually clearer because the stallion lessened the distance between itself and them or because the light made all things clearer as the sun rose from behind the clouds?
he did not count yussuf nor the dumb youth in the race for zarah’s life. a great brotherly love existed between them, protecting them from harm one from the other; nor did he blame the blind man for taking his revenge by setting the bitch to hunt the girl down.
in his wild heart and simple mind love, hate and revenge were inextricably interwoven in the web of life, circumstance alone deciding which should triumph in the end.
he would overtake them easily and pass them with a friendly shout, as he rapidly lessened the distance which separated him from love and freedom.
his plan was of the simplest.
he would lift the woman he loved into his arms and ride away with her to some distant part of the desert. there he would gather the fiercest outlaws to him, and with them raid the country until his name should become a byword in the land, whilst his riches should accumulate so that his woman’s happiness should be great. he smiled as he rode with the dreams in his heart and his eyes upon the greyhound and the spear loose in his hand.
he knew that the bedouins, who had seen rādi hunting across the desert, had come to swear by her endurance and resistance, and to boast to the stranger within the[314] land of how she hunted the night through without water or food or rest.
likewise she held an unbroken record.
she had never failed to kill.
he looked down at lulah’s hoof-prints and called to the stallion as he caressed the glossy neck. the mare’s hoof-prints showed deeper and deeper, and in two places where she had crossed her feet under the strain of a great fatigue. for speed she was renowned throughout the peninsula, but in endurance the lowest hireling from the bazaar could beat her.
and behind her ran the greyhound which had never been known to fail in a kill.
he felt the stallion’s pace increase as he stroked the glossy neck; then, clutching the silvery mane, he swung, head down, listening to a sound which had come to him along the sand even above the pounding of the stallion’s hoofs. he swung himself erect and turned and looked along the path marked out by those who fled and those who pursued.
led by the patriarch, the men of the sanctuary, stretched out in a line across the horizon, raced towards him. they rode with the lance at rest, and shouted as they rode, until the heavens were filled with the sound of their voices and the thunder of their horses’ hoofs.
there was no help to be sought of them.
they rode in the joy of the hunt, in the hope of a kill, just as they had ridden to the attack upon the white man’s camp, led by the woman who had revolted them at last with her tyranny, and who, in the secret places of their inconstant hearts, they hoped would die rather than the white man and the white woman who fled before her.
then fate jerked the strings which hobbled them all to their destiny.
al-asad, riding with his eyes upon the greyhound, looked up and ahead when yussuf’s challenging cry came[315] to him on the wind. breathlessly he watched for an instant of time, then sat back and raised his spear as the mare stumbled and flung zarah to the ground. in an unconscious effort to catch the mare he pulled the stallion to the left, then pressed the beast hard with his right knee, bringing it back to the path, and touched its neck with the tip of the needle-pointed spear, so that it leaped forward under the unexpected goad and hurled itself on the track of the greyhound, which tore like the wind to where the girl stood.
the half-caste just glanced at yussuf and “his eyes” as their dromedary suddenly left the path and sped away across the desert. he knew the dromedary was being driven along a circuitous route by which it would ultimately join up with the white people; he knew that yussuf felt sure of his revenge and had left the end to the will of allah; he felt no hatred in his heart as he looked after them, fleeing to the safety which was their birthright; he felt no anger as he raised his spear above his head, so that it glittered in the risen sun, and shouted the battle-cry as he drove the stallion to the rescue of the girl who stood alone, so far away, facing him and the greyhound who had never failed to kill.
he turned for an instant to look at the men who followed hard upon his track, magnificent in his desperate need, his face alight with the glow of battle. he raised his spear in answer to the patriarch, who raised his in salutation, and raised it again in greeting to the men, his friends.
“a day which is not thine do not reckon it as of thy life.”—arabic proverb.
with the fatalism of the arab, zarah stood watching the race between the greyhound and the man who loved her.
[316]
she had glanced at the black dromedary carrying blind yussuf and “his eyes” to freedom; she had looked at the magnificent sight of the men she had ruled so tyrannically as they deployed so that they should encircle her when they reached her; she did not turn to look in the direction taken by the girl she hated and the man she had loved passionately and for so brief a time.
yet did hate outweigh the danger of the hour.
“by allah,” she cried, lifting her spear, “if i live i will lead my men upon them and trample them and those who help them under foot. yea, by the honour of the arab i swear, if i throw the spear so that it pierces the heart of yon cursed dog, that not one of them shall be left alive within the hour.”
she dropped her white cloak from her shoulders and stepped clear, weighing the slender spear as she measured the lessening distance between the stallion and the greyhound. her heart quickened not one beat, nor did the slightest shadow of fear show in the tawny eyes. she did not despair as the bitch seemed to gain upon the stallion; she did not hope as the thunder of the stallion’s hoofs sounded clearer and clearer every moment.
she was alone in her hour of desperate need, and only upon the strength and skill of her right hand and the judgment of her eye could she depend for life if the nubian failed to reach her in time.
yet even when that life trembled in the balance she could not refrain from tormenting the man who had been her willing, humble slave from the moment his eyes had first met hers, and who alone raced to help her in her peril.
she held out her arms towards him and called his name and smiled, even though she could almost see the red gleam of hate in the greyhound’s eyes, so near was the revengeful beast.
“al-asad!” she called. “al-asad!”
her voice sounded like a peal of bells in the desert stillness, her beauty flamed like the sky above, her courage[317] was superb as she measured the distance between herself and the maddened greyhound.
then she leant forward and screamed, screamed till the echo of the terrible sound carried to yussuf’s ears, so that he turned and looked back in the direction of the girl he could not see.
death was upon her; death with a crown of red above its snow-white face; the death yussuf had prophesied when she had struck him blind.
she ran back so that the white cloak stretched between; she looked round and up, up to the sun which was her birthright, forward to the closing of her day. she flung out her arms, her hands, fingers widespread as though to clutch the last moments of the life she loved so well. life was nigh spent; she stood within the shadows of eternity; but, true to her father’s race, true to the relentless desert to which she belonged, she would die fighting.
she shouted the battle-cry as she raised her spear.
“ista ’jil! ista ’jil! ista ’jil!”
the desperate, defiant words were carried across the sands as she flung the spear, flung it as rādi the bitch, increasing her speed in a last desperate effort to revenge her pup, changed her course by a few inches, so that the spear barely grazed the shoulder as it flew past and buried itself in the sands.
then fear came to zarah the cruel, not the fear of death, but fear of an ignominious end in the eyes of her men.
“kill me, al-asad! kill me!”
she called desperately to the nubian as she caught the bitch by the throat as she leapt upon her.
“kill me! kill me! kill me!”
the terrible cry rang in the nubian’s ears as, misjudging his strength, he hurled the spear even as the greyhound leapt.
he shouted with triumph as the greyhound fell back[318] dead, then flung himself from the stallion as he swept past at full speed and threw himself upon the girl he loved as she lay still.
the point of the spear which had killed the greyhound had buried itself in zarah’s heart.
he did not hear the shouting of the men as they swept down upon him from every side; he did not seem to see the sun in the heavens as he knelt and drew the weapon free; he did not hear the call of life as he lifted the girl and held her against his heart.
“zarah,” he whispered softly, holding her gently on his arm. “i love thee! no kiss have i wrested from thee awake. behold, is it for me to snatch one from thee in sleep?” he turned her face to his shoulder and touched her hair gently, winding one curl about his slender fingers. “i love thee, mate of mine. i hunger for thee, i thirst for thee. yea, by the wind of dawn i cannot live without thee. behold, is there a smile lurking in the corner of thy mouth, and thine eyes, like unto clear water winding across the sands, laugh at me between thy lashes. thou art gone but a space before me across life’s desert, and i hold the hem of thy garment in my hands so that thou canst not escape me. i hear thee calling me in the wind, i see thee beckoning me ’neath the sun.” he bent and kissed her hair, then looked up to the sun, to the heavens, to that which awaited him.
he raised his spear above his head and smiled.
the men, racing towards him in a great circle, raised their spears and shouted a salutation as they pulled their horses back upon their haunches. he shifted the girl a little upon his left arm, then threw back his head and shouted the battle-cry, shouted until the desert rang with the triumphant cry, as the men, divining his intention, charged down upon him.
he shook the spear above his head and laughed.
“zarah! my woman! zarah, i follow thee!”
he shouted the words, shouted with joy, then drove the spear deep down into his faithful heart.
