There was one thing, however, that Seti loved more than horses, or at least as much. Life to him was one long possible Donnybrook Fair. That was why, although he was no longer in the army, when Fielding and Dicky mounted for the sortie he said to Fielding:
“Oh, brother of Joshua and all the fighters of Israel, I have a bobtailed Arab. Permit me to ride with thee.” And Fielding replied: “You will fight the barn-yard fowl for dinner; get back to your stew-pots.”
But Seti was not to be fobbed off. “It is written that the Lord, the Great One, is compassionate and merciful. Wilt thou then, O saadat.”
Fielding interrupted: “Go, harry the onion-field for dinner. You’re a dog of a slave, and a murderer too: you must pay the price of that grindstone!”
But Seti hung by the skin of his teeth to the fringe of Fielding’s good-nature—Fielding’s words only were sour and wrathful. So Seti grinned and said: “For the grindstone, behold it sent Ebn Haroun to the mercy of God. Let him rest, praise be to God!”
“You were drummed out of the army. You can’t fight,” said Fielding again; but he was smiling under his long moustache.
“Is not a bobtailed nag sufficient shame? Let thy friend ride the bobtailed nag and pay the price of the grindstone and the drum,” said Seti.
“Fall in!” rang the colonel’s command, and Fielding, giving Seti a friendly kick in the ribs, galloped away to the troop.
Seti turned to the little onion-garden. His eye harried it for a moment, and he grinned. He turned to the doorway where a stew-pot rested, and his mind dwelt cheerfully on the lamb he had looted for Fielding’s dinner. But last of all his eye rested upon his bobtailed Arab, the shameless thing in an Arab country, where every horse rears his tail as a peacock spreads his feathers, as a marching Albanian lifts his foot. The bobtailed Arab’s nose was up, his stump was high. A hundred times he had been in battle; he was welted and scarred like a shoe-maker’s apron. He snorted his cry towards the dust rising like a surf behind the heels of the colonel’s troop.
Suddenly Seti answered the cry—he answered the cry and sprang forward.