“Thou wilt send me to Cairo,” she cried, flinging round, “me, who must one day, even at thy death, rule in thy stead. Nay! Make not the sign against the evil day, for die thou must. Thou art mad, O my father, nearing thy dotage or distraught or sick of a fever. What can they do, these white folk, to make me more than I am? Can they enhance my beauty by their ugly raiment? Or teach me anything that I do not know about horses or the dance, or soften my voice by teaching me their language, which sounds like the hissing of snakes caught in a basket; can they?”
“Nay! they cannot!” indifferently replied the Sheikh, who was as easy to move as a pyramid once his mind was set upon a project. “But they can teach thee to eat even as did thy mother and less like a dog with a bone between its teeth; also can they drive home the duty of a daughter towards her father’s guests. For two years shalt thou sojourn amongst the stranger, then will I marry thee to whomsoever I will, if perchance there be a man who will look with favour upon one who has so dishonoured the name of her father.”
The Emeer, who was thoroughly enjoying the taming of the beautiful shrew, nodded his head in approval, whereupon the girl’s hand slipped to her girdle. She was mad with rage, ripe for direst mischief, ready to kill through the workings of her untutored mind, but she reckoned without the Sheikh, who had not ruled a band of outlaws for nothing.
As her hand slipped to her girdle he sprang, and, catching her by the wrist, flung her to the floor, wrenching the pistol from her fingers, whilst the Emeer sat unmoved, nodding his turbaned head.
She was on her feet in an instant, breathless, undaunted, magnificent in her fury.
“O thou,” she cried, “who thinkest that a woman can be quelled by threats. Thou canst not even keep me by thy side. I leave this place for ever to-night, taking with me the men who, in their youth and strength, love me, leaving thee the grey-beards and women and children. O! thou fool, thou fool!”
She turned and ran swiftly across the hall as the Sheikh clapped his hands; she stopped dead as two gigantic Abyssinian slaves suddenly appeared in the doorway to inquire their master’s bidding.
“Let loose the greyhounds for the night!” curtly commanded the Sheikh.
The slaves pressed the pink palms of their dusky hands against their foreheads and turned to go.