Picking up her dainty feet as though she walked upon hot stones, tossing her proud little head, with big, gentle eyes, spreading nostrils and fine small ears almost touching at the tips, mane flowing, tail set high and spread, came the snow-white mare, Pi-Kay.
Allah! but the loveliness of that picture as she stood, thoroughbred, perfect, as proud as any queen, as scornful as any spoiled beauty, as confused at the sight of her master as any bride!
Ten yards away and motionless she stood from this man who seemed to take no notice of her, and then she wheeled, and flung up her heels; then stopped and looked at him along her satin flank and piqued with his indifference suddenly sped out into the desert.
Then, softly, melodiously, the man's voice called her, ringing like a bell under the lightening sky, and behold, love awoke in the mare's heart and she turned and raced back towards him, longing for his hand and the grip of his knees upon her. But with her feet upon the tan, she turned her back upon him and danced across towards the coal-black stallions, causing their grooms to hold on to them with both hands; then she came back to circle round about this man, who seemingly took no notice of her vagaries, not even when she reared just behind him, pawing the air, nor when she lashed out at a humble sayis, missing him by a hair; until, at last, overpowered by curiosity and love, curveting, rearing, throwing her feet and making a frightful to-do over nothing at all, she came close up—oh! very close—and whinnied gently.
With one hand clutching the silvery mane and in one bound he was across the bare back and away with her into the desert, gripping her with his knees, calling to her by every love-name he could think of.
And out there alone in the desert at the hour of prayer, he slipped from her and, turning towards Mecca, raised his hands to heaven.
"O God of the West! O Allah of the East! Give me one single hour of love!"
And the mare, Pi-Kay, wonderful in her beauty, raced from him far out into the desert, leaving him alone with his God; then stood quite still, with fine small ears pricked, waiting for the call she knew would come. And when it came ringing clear over the golden sand, she raced back to him and pushed against him, until he sprang upon her and turned her towards the East.
"By the war-horses," he cried, quoting from Al-Koran, "which run swiftly to battle, with a panting noise; and by those who strike fire by dashing their hoofs against the stones; and by those who make a sudden invasion on the enemy early in the morning and therein raise the dust, and therein pass through the midst of the adverse troops . . . . by the Message of the Great Book and by my love will I wrest one hour from life."
And urging the mare with the whip of love to the uttermost of her wonderful speed, he thundered back across the path of sand, which was to be trodden by his feet alone, in spite of the plots which Zulannah the courtesan was even then weaving about him—to her own advancement.