“Who is he who shall defend you against God, if He is pleased to bring evil on you?”
“O Lord, give her the double of our punishment; and curse her with a heavy curse!”
The sonorous words range out on the stillness, barely broken by the padding of the dromedary’s cushioned feet upon the sand, then he stopped suddenly, alert, apprehensive.
His hearing, sharpened by his blindness, had caught the sound of the drumming of a horse’s hoofs upon the sand many miles behind.
“Look once more behind, little brother, methought ’twould not be long before her lover rode in pursuit. Ha! thou seest one riding like a leaf before the wind. By the beard! ’tis the Lion riding to find his mate! Allah smite that which he bestrides so that no harm befalls him.” He turned round in the saddle and stared back along the path he could not see. “Seest thou aught else behind the Lion, little brother? Far behind? Thou seest naught! Yet is there a sound of thunder in mine ears, even the sound of the hoofs of many horses tearing like the hurricane towards us.”
He listened for a moment, then turned again and stared unseeingly in front towards the figure of the woman who had blinded him. He smiled as best he could for the distortion of his mouth and threw back his head.
Zarah looked back, at last, as the challenge of the battle-cry came to her on the wind, and, recognizing that speed alone would save her from the death which hunted her down, drove her spear into the mare’s hindquarters.
The exhausted beast, ridden without mercy, her satiny coat dripping, her chest asmother with foam, bounded forward under the agony of the goad, crossed her feet, stumbled, flinging Zarah over her head as she crashed to her knees, then, up before the Arabian could rise, turned and fled into the desert towards the east, where the sun showed above the clouds.