"I saw her first," replied Eshbaal.
"Did you hear what he said?" demanded Jezebel of Lady Barbara.
The English girl nodded apathetically. Her brain was numb with the disappointment and the horror of the situation, for in some respects their fate might be worse with these men than with those of South Midian. These were lusty, primitive warriors, not half-witted creatures whose natural passions had been weakened by generations of hereditary disease of nerve and brain.
"He wants me," said Jezebel. "Is he not beautiful?"
Lady Barbara turned upon the girl almost angrily, and then suddenly she remembered that Jezebel was little more than a child in experience and that she had no conception of the fate that might await her at the hands of the North Midians.
In their narrow religious fanaticism the South Midians denied even the most obvious phases of procreation. The subject was absolutely taboo and so hideous had ages of training and custom made it appear to them that mothers often killed their first born rather than exhibit these badges of sin.
"Poor little Jezebel," said Lady Barbara.
"What do you mean, Barbara?" asked the girl. "Are you not happy that the beautiful man wants me?"
"Listen, Jezebel," said Lady Barbara. "You know I am your friend, do you not?"
"My only friend," replied the girl. "The only person I ever loved."