Again resounded the feverish interrogations:
"What is to be done?"
"Allah! Perhaps he will step aside."
"No, he will not."
And again a silence fell. Only the snorting of the horses and the quickened breathing of the human breasts could be heard.
"Untie Kali!" Chamis suddenly exclaimed to Gebhr, "and we will escape on the horses; the lion will first overtake him, and kill him only."
"Do that," repeated the Bedouins.
But Gebhr surmised that in such a case Kali, in the twinkling of an eye, would climb on the rocky wall and the lion would chase after the horses; therefore another horrible idea suggested itself to him. He would kill the boy with his knife and fling his body ahead of him and then the lion, dashing after them, would see on the ground the bleeding corpse and stop to devour it.
So he dragged Kali by the rope to the saddle and had already raised his knife, when in the same second Stas clutched the wide sleeve of his jubha.
"Villain! What are you doing?"