"For the love of God—your God as well as mine—save me from this man!" said Mabel, clinging to the stirrup-leather of the farmer, whose venerable appearance encouraged her, and who placed his strong brown hand on her head encouragingly and protectingly.
"I dare you to interfere!" exclaimed Zohrab, hoarse with passion, as he drew from his girdle the long brass pistol he had just half cocked and replaced there.
"And why so?" asked the Hazir-bashi, who seemed quite ready for a brawl, and perhaps the appropriation of the girl.
"Because she is—my wife."
"Your wife!" exclaimed Nouradeen, withdrawing his hand abruptly, and swerving round his horse, so that Mabel nearly fell to the ground.
"Yes; we were married before the Cadi: and now she would seek to repudiate me, and return to her own accursed people," said the artful Zohrab; for marriage among the Mohammedans is exclusively a civil ceremony, performed before a Cadi, or magistrate, and not by an Imaum or any other minister of religion, with which it has nothing to do.
"Oh, believe not a word of this; it is false—false!" implored Mabel, with desperation in her tone.
"It is true; and thou, Kaffir, liest! Silence, silence, or I will kill thee!" hissed Zohrab in her ear; and she felt that he was but too capable of putting his threat into execution. "Interfere not with us, I charge you; but leave us, and remember what the fourth chapter of the Koran says, 'If a woman fear ill-usage or aversion from her husband, it shall be no crime in them if they settle the matter amicably between themselves; for a reconciliation is better than a separation;' therefore leave us to agree amicably, as the Prophet hath advised."
"And the same chapter, good Zohrab, tells us how we may chastise such wives as are contumacious, and those captives, too, whom our right hand may possess," said the farmer; "so farewell, and may the steps of you both be fortunate," he added, as he and his three companions galloped laughingly away, and with a wail, as if from her heart, Mabel found herself alone once more in the moonlight solitude—alone with her unscrupulous companion.