“Those on horses are to follow me, twenty yards ahead; they are to turn with me and ride back on the camels to stop their flight. When they meet they are to fling their cloaks over the camels’ heads. The camels are to be got to their knees; those who ride horses are to dismount and to let them go.” She was magnificent in her courage and beautiful in her seeming solicitude for her men, whereas, if only the truth had been known, she was merely revelling in the fight against almost overwhelming odds.
She turned to Ralph Trenchard and held out her hand as she swept forward at the head of the fifty horsemen, who rode with their knees, holding their cloaks in their hands.
“Turn!” she cried, though her words were drowned in the thunder of the gallop and the moaning of the wind, which blew like a furnace from the purple cloud close upon their heels. “Fight them back, fight them. Follow me!”
The terrified horses were turned almost in a line and, headed by Zarah, with Ralph Trenchard and Al-Asad on either side, charged the camels.
The impact was terrific.
The two lines of huge beasts met with a crash, which sounded to Ralph Trenchard like the splitting of rocks, as the fifty horsemen fought the camels back and to a standstill, flinging their cloaks over their heads.
“Dismount!” shouted Zarah, as she rode from end to end, whilst, swaying and bending, the column of poison gas crept slowly across the sands. “Let the horses go! Get the camels down! Dismount for your lives!”
She swung from the saddle and fought her way amongst the seething beasts to where Ralph Trenchard helped to force the camels down by kicks and blows upon the knees.
“Thy heavy boot,” she gasped; “bring that camel down, then lie beside it, and—and——”