And half an hour later Helen, little recking how near she and the man she loved had been to death, stood just inside her door, watching the magnificent sight of the shouting, laughing men as they rode their horses up the steep incline on their way to a gallop across the desert.
Her eyes were full of perplexity, her heart beat heavily in an unaccountable fear, but, determined that the spy should have naught to tell her mistress, she let drop the curtain and stretched herself upon her bed.
Al-Asad ran up the steps to his mistress’s dwelling and entered her room.
She watched him from under her arm as she lay upon the divan and smiled at the mastery of the man’s bearing, then looked up at him out of sleepy, opalescent eyes as he knelt beside her so that his face was on a level with hers.
“He is thine, woman. The white man is thine for a space. I, Al-Asad the slave, have given him unto thee. I have worked well for thee, mistress, I have worked well for thee!”
He rose as he spoke and swept her into his arms, and laughed down at her as she struggled desperately.
Then he kissed her scented hair, and held her down upon his heart so that she could not move.
“I give thee the white man! For a spell! I, thy mate!”
He crushed her until she lay as still as death in his arms, then flung her on the cushions and ran out of the dwelling and down the steps to the stables, where he led out his mare, and, without saddle or bridle or harness whatever, leapt across her back and rode her, shouting with the joy of life, up the steep path and out to the desert he loved.