A torch flared suddenly in the far distance, and another, and yet another, until a line of orange flame swept across the sky towards the camp, rising and falling at regular intervals as though borne upon the crest of some gigantic wave.
From underneath the flaming line came the thunder of many hoofs and the shouting of many men, invisible in the darkness. Then showed dimly the shape of a white horse ridden by a woman, and behind her horses and men sweeping down to the attack.
Glittering from head to foot with jewels, shouting with her men, Zarah the Cruel, the mysterious woman of the desert, rode her favourite stallion native-wise, guiding him with her knees, ripping his satiny sides with golden spur to keep him a length ahead of those she led.
“Ista’jil! Zarah! Ista’jil! Zarah!”
The men shouted the battle-cry and the Arabian’s name unceasingly as they drove their horses at full gallop over the billows of sand, holding aloft their throwing spears, upon the points of which lighted torches flared. Little cared she that the line of light made a splendid target for the enemy hidden in the darkness; little cared she what happened to those around her so long as tales of mystery and power about her were carried throughout the Peninsula, across to Egypt, and up to Turkey and far away to India.
She raised her spear when a volley from the camp brought men and horses crashing to the ground, and turning to Al-Asad, who rode at her right hand, shouted an order, which he repeated, whilst the men yelled “Wah! Wah!” as they raised their spears and whirled them above their heads, until the sky seemed full of great circles of fire and the earth possessed of demons.
There came the crash of a second volley from the camp just as Al-Asad raised his hand, and the spears, with flaming torch upon the points, flashed like meteors in a semicircle through the air, to fall in the centre of the camp.
“They surround us, Excellency!” shouted Abdul, who had left the screaming, fighting camels to their fate so as to stand by the side of the white man he had learned to love and respect during the long weeks they had passed together. “Watch her, that thrice accursed daughter of pigs; she makes the point from which her men deploy.”
As the men spread out on each side of her Zarah reined the stallion in, holding him, rearing and plunging, upon one spot, seemingly indifferent to the bullets which rained about her, spitting up the sand at the animal’s feet, bringing her men and her horses to the ground. She laughed aloud and raised her spear twice above her head as the tent to the north caught fire, lighting up the smallest detail of the inferno. In the fire and the smoke caused by the torches falling amongst the packs and tents Ralph Trenchard and his men worked like demons to loosen the great water skins, whilst the camels shrieked and fought and tore at each other in their agony, as the spears hurled by the enemy were buried in their sides or in the ground, or in the breasts of the Arabs who fought so desperately for life.
“Have they no rifles?” yelled Trenchard.