“Nay, lady,” he answered faintly, for he was much shaken, “that would be a pity; also, if any, it is my hair which should be vowed.”
“You bleed from the head,” she broke in; “say, stranger, are you deeply wounded.”
“I will tell you nothing of my head,” he replied, with a smile, “unless you promise that you will not offer up your hair.”
“So be it, stranger, since I must; I will give the goddess this gold chain instead; it is of more worth.”
“You would do better, lady,” said the shrill voice of Metem, who by now had found his wits again, “to give the gold chain to me whose scalp has been broken in rescuing you from that black thief.”
“Sir,” she answered, “I am grateful to you from my heart, but it is this young lord who killed the man and saved me from slavery worse than death, and he shall be rewarded by my father.”
“Listen to her,” grumbled Metem. “Did I not rush in first in my folly and receive what I deserved for my pains? But am I to have neither thanks nor pay, who am but an old merchant; they are for the young prince who came after. Well, so it ever was; the thanks I can spare, and the reward I shall claim from the treasury of the goddess.
“Now, Prince, let me see your hurt. Ah! a cut on the ear, no more, and thank your natal star that it is so, for another inch and the great vein of the neck would have been severed. Prince, if you are able, draw out your sword from the carcase of that brute, for I have tried and cannot loosen the blade. Then perhaps this lady will guide us to the city before his fellows come to seek him, seeing that for one night I have had a stomach full of fighting.”
“Sirs, I will indeed. It is close at hand, and my father will thank you there; but if it is your pleasure, tell me by what names I shall make known to him you whose rank seems to be so high?”
“Lady, I am Metem the Phœnician, captain of the merchandise of the caravan of Hiram, King of Tyre, and this lord who slew the thief is none other than the prince Aziel, the twice royal, for he is grandson to the glorious King of Israel, and through his mother of the blood of the Pharaohs of Egypt.”