Sarchedon could not forbear a laugh.
"Hold!" he exclaimed, while he shot with some difficulty to the front, raising his bow horizontally above his head to stop the undisciplined flight. "Hold, fools and faint of heart! Can you not turn for one look in your enemy's face, ere you scour away before him like a herd of frightened deer? Stop, I say; lest I drive an arrow through the foremost of ye, and leave him to be picked clean by the vultures ere the sun goes down!"
"The simoon!" gasped the leading horseman, pressing wildly onward without pause.
"The simoon!" repeated Sarchedon, seizing the other's bridle, and thus bringing him to an involuntary halt. "Do you call yourself a son of Ashur, and not know better the arms and apparel of your enemy? Can you see the violet spot that marks the demon's eye, the purple hem that borders his garment, the golden spangles that glitter through his veil? For shame, man! And you, too, Sethos; I could not have believed you would turn and fly, with bow and spear in hand, from a bushel of dust flung up on the wayside!"
Thus arguing, storming, and gesticulating, he succeeded in pacifying the terror of his comrades, who consented to halt for a space and breathe their horses, while they scanned the appearance that had given rise to their alarm. The peril, when they examined it more coolly, was none the less threatening that its cause seemed in no way supernatural. The clouds of sand had indeed increased both in extent and volume; but through the folds of that dusky curtain gleamed here and there a sparkle of steel, while at its skirts an opaque winding line denoted to a warrior's eye the approach of a strong body of horse.
The Assyrians became somewhat reassured, though Sethos and Sarchedon looked doubtfully from each other's faces to the advancing host. Already they could distinguish fluttering garments, uplifted spears, and the banners of Egypt waving over all.
"He has sent to fetch us back!" exclaimed the cup-bearer. "He has repented him of his counsel, and we have not done with Pharaoh yet!"
Sarchedon burst into a mocking laugh.
"Have they wings like the south wind," said he, "that they hope to overtake the horses of Assyria in the open desert with heads turned for home? If, as in good truth it seems, there be too many to fight, let us put on at speed, and the hosts of Pharaoh shall toil after us in vain."
They galloped on accordingly at a steady even pace, which, while it could be kept up for a considerable distance, gained surely though gradually on their pursuers.