"Man to man, and in the desert, I had but little to fear, yet when I saw Achmet's face, my heart turned to water within me. He was a brave warrior. I had ridden by his side many a time in deadly strife; but I had never seen him look like this before. When I turned to confront him, my horse was jaded and worn out--I felt that my life was in the hand of mine enemy.
"'Achmet,' I said, 'let me go in peace; the maiden has made her choice--she is mine.'
"His only answer was a lance-thrust that passed between Zuleika's body and my own. The girl clung fainting to my bosom, and encumbered my sword-arm. My horse could not withstand the shock of Achmet's charge, and rolled over me on the sand. In endeavouring to preserve Zuleika from injury, my yataghan dropped out of its sheath; my lance was already broken in the fall, and I was undermost, with the gripe of my adversary on my throat. Twice I shook myself free from his hold: and twice I was again overmastered by my rival. His eyes were like living coals, and the foam flew from his white lips. He was mad, and Allah gave him strength. The third time his grasp brought the blood from my mouth and nostrils. I was powerless in his hold. His right arm was raised to strike; I saw the blade quivering dark against the burning sky. I turned my eyes towards Zuleika; for even then I thought of her. The girl was a true Arab, faithful to the last. Once, twice, she raised her arm quick and deadly as the lightning. She had seized my yataghan when it dropped from its sheath, and she buried it in Achmet's body. I rose from the ground a living man, and I was saved by her.
"Effendi, we took the bay mare, and left my jaded horse with the dead man. For days we journeyed on, and looked not back, nor thought of the past, for we were all in all to each other; and whilst our barley lasted and we could find water we knew that we were safe: so we reached Cairo, and trusted in Allah for the future. I had a sword, a lovely wife, and the best mare in the world; but I was a soldier, and I could not gain my bread by trade. I loathed the counters and the bazaar, and longed once more to see the horsemen marshalled in the field. So I fed and dressed the bay mare, and cleaned my arms, and leaving Zuleika in the bazaars, placed myself at the gate of the Pasha, and waited for an audience.
"He received me kindly, and treated me as a guest of consideration; but he had a cunning twinkle in his eye that I liked not; and although I knew him to be as brave as a lion, I suspected he was as treacherous as the fox; nevertheless, 'the hungry man knows not dates from bread,' and I accepted service under him willingly, and went forth from his presence well pleased with my fate. 'Zuleika,' I thought, 'will rejoice to hear that I have employment, and I shall find here in Cairo a sweet little garden where I will plant and tend my rose.'
"I thought to rejoin my love where I had left her, in the bazaar; but she was gone. I waited hours for her return; she came not, and the blood thickened round my heart. I made inquiries of the porters and water-carriers, and all the passers-by that I could find: none had seen her. One old woman alone thought she had seen a girl answering my description in conversation with a black, wearing the uniform of the Pasha; but she was convinced the girl had a fawn-coloured robe, or it might have been lilac, or perhaps orange, but it certainly was not green: this could not then be Zuleika, for she wore the colour of the Prophet. She was lost to me--she for whom I had striven and toiled so much; my heart sank within me; but I could not leave the place, and for months I remained at Cairo, and became a Yuz-Bashi in the Guards of the Pasha. But from that time to this I have had no tidings of Zuleika--my Zuleika."
The Beloochee's face was deadly pale, and his features worked with strong emotion: it was evident that this fierce warrior--man of blood though he had been from his youth upward--had been tamed by the Arab girl. She was the one thing on earth he loved, and the love of such wild hearts is fearful in intensity. After a pause, during which he seemed to smother feelings he could not command, he proceeded in a hoarse, broken voice with his tale.
"The days have never been so bright since I lost her, Effendi; but what would you? it was my kismet, and I submitted; as we must all submit when it is fruitless to struggle. Day by day I did my duty, and increased in the good opinion of the Pasha; but I cared for nothing now save only the bay mare, and I gave her the name of one whom I should never see again.
"The Pasha was a haughty old warrior, lavish in his expenses, magnificent in his apparel, and above all, proud of his horses. Some of the swiftest and noblest steeds of the desert had found their way into his stables; and there were three things in the world which it was well known he would not refuse in the shape of a bribe, these were gold, beauty, and horse-flesh. Ere long he cast a wistful look on my bay mare Zuleika.
"It is well known, Effendi, that an Arab mare of pure race is not to be procured. The sons of the desert are true to their principles, and although gold will buy their best horses, they are careful not to part with their mares for any consideration in the world. For long the Pasha would not believe that Zuleika was a daughter of that wonderful line which was blessed so many hundred years ago by the Prophet, nor was I anxious that he should learn her value, for I knew him to be a man who took no denial to his will. But when he saw her outstripping all competitors at the jereed; when he saw her day after day, at work or at rest, in hardship or in plenty, always smooth and sleek and mettlesome as you see her now, he began to covet so good an animal, and with the Pasha to covet was in one way or another to possess.