He sprang at the youth, caught him, tightly wrapped in the great white cloak, held him easily above his head in spite of his struggles, then, still holding him horizontally, swung him round and round, with much the same movement as one uses in swinging clubs, plumped him on his feet, shook him like a rat, and flung him like a sack of durra back to his place, whilst the men roared with delight.
“I break thy neck, O brother, and the neck of any who dares to make mock of Zarah the Beautiful. She is a woman, but is she not the child of our dead chief? Did she not give us shelter when we fled from the wrath of the pursuers? Food when our bones wellnigh pierced the skin? Water when we thirsted? Then....”
“’Tis well said, O Lionheart, verily is thy speech of gold....”
“Does she not reward us when the toil is done?” continued Al-Asad, taking no notice of the unseemly interruption. “When the heat of the day is o’er and the peace of the night falleth apace.” He glanced down at the mark upon his arm, well pleased at the effect his flowing, if borrowed, rhetoric was having upon his unsuspecting audience. “Shall we not be grateful? Shall we not show her our gratitude? Shall we not—shall we not help her against her enemies—even as she helped us in our need?”
He had the men in the hollow of his hand.
Their knives flashed as they leapt to their feet, their voices sounded like thunder as they shouted in execration, cursed in volume, and clamoured to be led against the foe.
Al-Asad gave them no time to collect their senses scattered by their desire for battle, murder and revenge. He hit whilst their wrath was at white heat, raining blows upon their pride and ultrasensitiveness. He seized the white cloak from the one nearest and wrapped it about him, and cleared a space by the strength of his good right arm.
“Her enemy, my brethren, and thine, is a woman, nay! give ear for a while. Our mistress, with a desire to help her white prisoner—yea! even she—sat with her anon, whilst I sat without the curtain, unseen by either of them. Before Allah, they were as night and day, sun and moon, in their beauty. Yea! and I will see that thou speakest not again in this life, my brother, if thou essayest once more to open thy mouth, which is as wide and ugly as the storm-swept desert. And, behold! this is what mine eyes saw and mine ears heard. She mocked, this white she-devil, mocked the people of the desert, walked like thee, brother, this wise”—with all the aptitude of the negro, he bowed his legs and rolled as he walked towards Bowlegs, the finest horseman in the Nejd—“and sat crosswise upon the cushions and rode like thee, little one”—he laughed and pointed at a youth who was noted for his ungainly seat upon horseback—“and made mock of our women as they draw water for her bath or grind the durra for her bread.” He imitated the surly negress with the gait of a lame hen, he also gave the quick movements of Namlah the Ant, then ran and barred the way as the men made a sudden, ugly rush. It was touch and go if he held them or if they overpowered him and, in one blinding moment of fury, rushed and killed Helen, thereby rousing the sleeping women and children and undoing all his cunning work. He laughed, laughed long and loud, until the place rang, laughed until, suspicious of being fooled, they hesitated and stopped.
Then he beckoned them and, squatting upon his haunches, spoke to them in whispers, thereby imparting a feeling of mystery to the tale he recounted of Zarah’s lie, which they thoroughly appreciated, and her dilemma, which they laughed at right heartily.
But he had reckoned without the love of gambling with which the Eastern is obsessed.