Though I winced at the reference to her over-lord I could but admire her fluent mastery of the nomadic tongue.
“He it was,” she continued, “who plucked me from thy side, fearing the long delays of the law. But thou gottest my message?”
“Yea, Princess—” I answered, at which she smiled, pleased evidently, at the promotion,—“Yea, even so,—and thy signal plume likewise. ’Twas well contrived the matter of the whiffle-hens. Trust thy woman’s wit.”
“’Twas simple,” she answered. “They were in the keeping of Kashgi, the sand-blower, an ancient stupid. Under guise of petting the bell hen I affixed my feather. Something told me they would find you, O Great South-wind.”
Her words moved me deeply.
“Straight as the thrown lance or the sped arrow,” I cried, feeling that the moment for tender mastery had come, “so came thy harbinger to me, O woman of bronze and gold. Allah be praised, whose hand hath guided me since that first fair evening when at the ocean’s edge I marvelled at thy sky-line!”
She looked down at me, for she was slightly taller than I—tenderly, her rugged contours softened and beautified in the silver light. It was like moonlight on a cliff. My heart pounded furiously—her presence, the silence of the desert ... the cognac.... I was fired by emotion. Drawing myself up to her full height I stretched out my arms.
“O, Woman——”
On the instant I paused, thunderstruck. Far away on the northern horizon a light gleamed for a moment and was gone. Was it fact or fancy that made me think I saw a vague shape in the shadows before me. Instantly the thought of Azad flashed through my mind and brought me to my senses.