“One hour for thy love, one hour for thy Lord.”—Arabic Proverb.
A mighty picture made Al-Asad and the stallion as they rode in the race to outstrip death. To aid the magnificent beast as it tore across the plain the Nubian lay close to its satin neck, guiding with knees and hand, coaxing and urging with his voice as it fled ventre à terre, silken mane and tail flying like banners in the wind.
There was naught but vision to tell him if he gained upon the dog or not, and even in that he dare not put his trust. For how was he to tell if the figures before him, the camel with its two riders, the dog ahead, the girl upon the black mare still farther off, and the three camels, mere dots upon the horizon, became gradually clearer because the stallion lessened the distance between itself and them or because the light made all things clearer as the sun rose from behind the clouds?
He did not count Yussuf nor the dumb youth in the race for Zarah’s life. A great brotherly love existed between them, protecting them from harm one from the other; nor did he blame the blind man for taking his revenge by setting the bitch to hunt the girl down.
In his wild heart and simple mind love, hate and revenge were inextricably interwoven in the web of life, circumstance alone deciding which should triumph in the end.
He would overtake them easily and pass them with a friendly shout, as he rapidly lessened the distance which separated him from love and freedom.
His plan was of the simplest.
He would lift the woman he loved into his arms and ride away with her to some distant part of the desert. There he would gather the fiercest outlaws to him, and with them raid the country until his name should become a byword in the land, whilst his riches should accumulate so that his woman’s happiness should be great. He smiled as he rode with the dreams in his heart and his eyes upon the greyhound and the spear loose in his hand.
He knew that the Bedouins, who had seen Rādi hunting across the desert, had come to swear by her endurance and resistance, and to boast to the stranger within the land of how she hunted the night through without water or food or rest.
Likewise she held an unbroken record.