Muttering a terrible malediction, the Bedouin, wrapping the bleeding stump in the folds of his burnous, furiously assailed Allan with his formidable sabre, shouting, as he did so, something to this purpose:—
'Unbelieving wretch, you shall go from hence to hell, where your hands will be chained to your neck, and you will be compelled to oppose your face to the flames.'
'Oho!' thought Allan, 'the Koran again!'
If he had time or means to give an alarm, all would be over.
It was a life for a life now, and both men fought desperately; both were expert swordsmen, and both were filled with blackest fury—the Bedouin by the agony of his wound, and Allan by the peril which menaced him.
After pausing to draw breath for a moment, Abdallah came rushing on with blind rage; Allan warded a cut, and, closing in, caught his sword-hand by the wrist and held it with an iron grasp; then, adroitly dropping the basket hilt of the claymore from his right hand, he caught the shortened blade and plunged it, dagger fashion, into the breast of the Arab, who fell at his feet and expired.
Inspired by an instant thought, he dragged the dead body away, and the hand and pistol also, to some distance from the vicinity of the tomb, and, returning, proceeded stealthily and speedily, if worn, breathless, and feeling rather sick by his recent work, to climb by the branches of the vine up the wall of the circular edifice, and over its heavily curved cornice, behind which he crouched down flat, and there he lay for hours, exposed to a shower of rain, the fall of which he hailed with thankfulness, as it would obliterate any traces of blood in his vicinity, and also his footmarks from the bruised branches of the vine which he had used as a ladder.
He knew that, if retaken now, the discovery of Abdallah's fate would seal his own; so, if found, nothing was left him but to die sword in hand.
Each respiration came heavily, as he lay there listening for every passing sound, and wondering how he had achieved the first chapter of his escape, and all the bloody and necessary work so well.
Strange it was that his hand should avenge the miserable Holcroft; but he did not think of that till afterwards; nor did he think of the too baleful effect the wet and damp of the Egyptian night might have upon his own health.