Nor did she look back, else might she have seen Fate pressing hard upon her heels.
“On the day of victory no fatigue is felt.”—Arabic Proverb.
Like a darker shadow amongst the shadows thrown upon the desert from the ill-omened sky, Rādi the bitch, the swiftest greyhound whelped in Hasa, loped alongside the dromedary ridden by Yussuf, with “His Eyes,” pillion-wise, behind him. She barely left a mark upon the sands so lightly did she run, perplexed, upon a track which held but the common scent of horse and camel. True, she ran in the wake of Lulah, her stable friend, but of enemy there was no trace; therefore of what avail to spend her strength in chasing shadows by the light of the rising sun?
“His Eyes” frowned when she broke away, and like an arrow from a bow set off hard upon the scent of something which had crossed the path after Lulah the mare.
“She has no interest, brother.” He tapped his message upon the blind man’s shoulder. “Even now she turns to follow the scent of some small beast of no account. Give me the sandal of Zarah the Cruel, so that she holds in her fine nose the scent of the woman of whom as yet we see no sign, but whom we hunt to the death.”
Yussuf sent a long, low call ringing across the sands, and Rādi, with every muscle in her gaunt body trained to a hair, without checking her speed, spun round upon her hind feet and tore back in answer to it. She ran at an angle to overtake the black dromedary, whose price was above that of many rubies, and recognizing the object dangled just out of reach, leapt at the sandal, missing it by an inch; then, as trained to do, on touching the ground turned in a circle to the right and at the top of her terrific speed, still at an angle, tore towards the dromedary and launched herself straight upon its back. Catching her by the throat, the dumb youth held her back, whilst, with claws clinging to the tufts of hair upon the dromedary’s haunches, the bitch fought to reach the sandal, the scent of which drove her to a veritable madness of hate and filled her with a lust to kill. She had it between her teeth when firing suddenly shattered the desert stillness, and she fought like a fury to keep it, until “His Eyes,” putting out all his strength, hurled her to the ground and, clasping Yussuf round the waist, leaned far sideways and stared ahead. In his excitement he snatched the mihjan from the blind man’s hand and, leaning backward, smote the dromedary upon the fleshy part of its hind leg above the knee, the tenderest spot of its tough anatomy, so that with a scream of rage it increased its pace seemingly a hundredfold and tore like a hurricane of wrath upon the path, at the far end of which “His Eyes” at last discerned a moving figure.
“Bism ’allah!” yelled Yussuf, answering the message tapped upon his shoulder. “Allah the Merciful delivereth the tyrant into our hands. The mare faileth, sayeth thou; the marks of her hoofs show ever deeper in the sand. Whence came the firing? From Zarah the Cruel or from our white brother who fleeth with the women before her vengeance? Nay! Nay! Knowest thou so little? Can’st not discern the difference ’twixt a pistol and a rifle? Allah strike her hand so that it is useless, and strike the mare dead so that the woman falls to the hound, who hates her even as I hate her in my blindness.”
He leaned down and called to the greyhound, exciting her with words as he pointed ahead, until, sensing an enemy at last, she shot in front of the dromedary. Then, sitting erect, he lifted his mutilated face to the flaming heavens and chanted verses from the Korān to the honour of Allah the one and only God, Who delivered the enemy into his hands:
“Flight shall not profit you if ye fly from death or from slaughter, and if it would, yet shall ye not enjoy this world but a little!”