The dervish, whose garments were stained with blood, did not so much as wince, but stood smiling at him with the same look of contempt, as if quite ready to meet his fate at the hands of his cowardly enemy, and in another minute the blow would have fallen, had not one of the mounted spectators shouted something which Frank, whose blood felt chilled, could not understand, and making his horse give a bound, interposed and laughingly warned the young chief back.
It was quite enough; the young man nodded, lowered his sword, and thrusting it into its sheath, rode back to Frank.
“And this is my new friend,” thought the latter, as he strove hard to conceal the repugnance he felt by gazing straight before him; so that the change in his countenance passed unnoticed, the young Emir saying something merrily and laughing in a peculiar manner, as he gave his head a sidewise jerk in the direction of the prisoners.
“Why am I brought here?” said Frank to himself, “and what are they going to do to these unfortunate wretches?”
But he already knew, and a terrible feeling of dread made his heart contract as if it stood still; there was a strangling sensation at his throat which checked his breathing, and the crowd in the open space swam slowly round him, making him feel that in his giddiness he would the next minute fall off his horse.
Then his heart began to throb violently, and an intense desire attacked him to press the beautiful creature he rode with his heels and gallop right away so as to hide the scene from his eyes. But directly after the knowledge that he had so much at stake came in reaction, and he felt that happen what might he must sit there, not showing the slightest emotion, bearing everything, for no effort upon his part could alter the fate of prisoners taken in what was no doubt a revolt against superior authority, that authority being one of the most cruel and bloodthirsty rulers of a cruel and bloodthirsty race.
“It is inevitable,” he thought, and the words he had said rose to his mind, as he felt and knew from all he had heard about the new Mahdi’s followers that if the fight had gone otherwise on the previous night the Emir’s people who were prisoners would have met with a similar fate.
“‘All they that take the sword shall perish with the sword,’” he muttered, and then the power to stir seemed to have left him, as he sat cold and stony in his saddle to witness whatever might come.
He was not long left in doubt.
The prisoners were in three bodies, strongly guarded, each group by a couple of score or so of fierce-looking, well-armed men, some bearing round shields in one hand, three spears of different lengths in the other, while others wore swords only, hanging from a broad baldric, and looking with their cross hilts and long, straight blades very similar to those seen in illuminations and on effigies of the old crusaders, saving that the blade widened out a little towards the point, and narrowed again.