“I see Lulah flying across the desert sands,” he whispered, “at dawn, with death upon her back. She flees for her life, with hate, revenge, hard upon her heels. She stumbles, there is ... nay! I see no more. ’Tis hidden in the mists of time. But death, death with a crown of red above her snow-white face, rode her, with hate upon her heels.”
He looked across at Zarah, who, ridden with superstition, and totally unaware that he was fooling her, leant far back upon her cushions, one hand extended, with fingers spread against disaster, the other clutching an amulet of good luck hanging about her neck.
He smiled at her terror and shrugged his shoulders, spreading his hands, palm uppermost, as though to protest against such signs of weakness. The action, the look in the wonderful eyes, acted as a spur upon the girl, goading her to maddest wrath. With a mighty effort she controlled herself and leaned far forward, eyes blazing, her lips drawn back in a snarl of hate.
“What has death to do with me?” she cried. “Verily dost thou croak like a bird of prey. I say that I will ride Lulah, the black mare, thy mare, as far as anything in the Sanctuary can be thine, who art but a servant. Hearest thou? I ride Lulah, the black mare!”
“Behold! have I ears to hear thy words, and eyes to see thy face distorted in anger! Yet I say that thou shalt not ride the mare.”
The men who sat in the body of the hall smoking or drinking coffee whilst listening to the dispute, nudged each other at the sudden, tense silence which fell between the two.
“A golden piece, Bowlegs, to the dagger in thy belt that trouble befalls before the coffee grows cold within the cups,” whispered the Patriarch, whose benign exterior covered a heart given entirely to gambling.
Bowlegs, who had gained his unpoetical sobriquet on account of his lower limbs, which had become almost circular through his infantile desire to run before he could crawl, laid his dagger on the carpet beside the golden piece.
“Nay! Not to-day. Fall the trouble will between the two who love each other as love the cat and dog, but not upon the tiger-cub’s day of festival—hist—she speaks.”
“And why shall I not ride the black mare?”