With a sign to Hosein, Carew drew rein. “My servant will attend you, Madame. I can go no further,” he said, abruptly, his eyes fixed on the distant city. She sat for a moment without answering, then she looked up quickly, her lips quivering, uncontrollably. “I don’t know what to say—how to thank you—” He cut her short almost rudely. “I need no thanks, Madame. Put the one deed against the other—and do not judge the Arabs too harshly. They are as other men—no better, and perhaps no worse.” She shook her head with a tremulous little smile, and for a time she seemed to be struggling with herself. Then she flung her hand out with an odd gesture of appeal. “If you won’t let me thank you, will you let me be still further in your debt?” she said, unsteadily.
“As how?”
“The horse I rode,” she faltered, “I—I——my husband values him. Can you help me get him back—and soon?”
Surprised that she should seek his aid in what was clearly a police matter, Carew glanced at her with a gathering frown, but what he saw in her eyes made him look away quickly.
“You shall have your horse, Madame. I pledge you my word,” he said, shortly. A look of curious relief swept over her tense face.
“Then I shan’t worry about him—any more,” she said, with a shaky laugh. And reigning her horse nearer, again she held out her hand. “Won’t you tell me your name? I should like to know it, to remember it in—in—” she choked back a rising sob. “Please,” she whispered.
He turned to her slowly, his eyes almost black in their sombre intensity. “I have many names,” he replied, unwillingly, as though he were forcing himself to speak.
“Then tell me one,” she pleaded, wistfully.
Still he hesitated, his square chin thrust out obstinately.
“I am called—El Hakim,” he said at last, reluctantly. And touching his forehead in a perfunctory salaam, he wheeled his impatient horse and spurred him into a headlong gallop.