"You ride?"
Damaris, thinking of the hack, the only thing with the shape of a horse she had been able to get so far, and upon the back of which she loathed to be seen, made a grimace.
"I go out on horseback," she said. "I have not ridden since I left home."
The man's reply, whatever it might have been, was interrupted by Abdul, who, all smiles, stood before them, with the white pigeon in the left hand and the shahin upon his right fist.
The native had no intention of causing the white woman pain; in fact, wishing to find favour in the eyes of the nobles, he only wanted to give them a chance of witnessing a little of, to him, the finest sport in the world.
"Look, lady!" he cried.
He tossed the pigeon high into the air, allowed her a little distance, then threw the hawk.
"No! Oh, no! don't!" cried Damaris, as the hawk rose, "stooped" and missed the pigeon by a hair's-breadth as it "put in", which means that it flew straight into a small niche of a minaret for cover.
"Ah!" cried Damaris, and "Bi-sma-llah!" ejaculated Abdul, as he threw the lure of a dead plover and called his hawk with the luring Eastern call. "Coo-coo," he called; "coo-coo," to which the hawk responded as a well-trained shahin should.
Hugh Carden Ali stood with his hand on the stallion's mane, looking up at the sky, in which shone a great star.