“I surrender,” she said briefly; she had never thought to say these words of submission to her scorned foes; she would not have been brought to utter them to spare her own existence. Their answer was a yell of furious delight, and their bare blades smote each other with a clash of brutal joy. They had her, the Frankish child who had brought shame and destruction on them at Zaraila, and they longed to draw their steel across the fair young throat, to plunge their lances into the bright, bare bosom, to twine her hair round their spear handles, to rend her delicate limbs apart, as a tiger rends the antelope, to torture, to outrage, to wreak their vengeance on her. Their chief, only, motioned their violence back from her, and bade them leave her untouched. At him she looked still with the same fixed, serene, scornful resolve; she had encountered these men so often in battle, she knew so well how rich a prize she was to him. But she had one thought alone with her; and for it she subdued contempt, and hate, and pride, and every passion in her.
“I surrender,” she said, with the same tranquillity. “I have heard that you have sworn by your God and your Prophet to tear me limb from limb because that I—a child, and a woman-child—brought you to shame and to grief on the day of Zaraila. Well, I am here; do it. You can slake your will on me. But that you are brave men, and that I have ever met you in fair fight, let me speak one word with you first.”
Through the menaces and the rage around her, fierce as the yelling of starving wolves around a frozen corpse, her clear, brave tones reached the ear of the chief in the lingua sabir that she used. He was a young man, and his ear was caught by that tuneful voice, his eyes by that youthful face. He signed upward the swords of his followers, and motioned them back as their arms were stretched to seize her, and their shouts clamored for her slaughter.
“Speak on,” he said briefly to her.
“You have sworn to take my body, sawn in two, to Ben-Ihreddin?” she pursued, naming the Arab leader whom her Spahis had driven off the field of Zaraila. “Well, here it is; you can take it to him; and you will receive the piasters, and the horses, and the arms that he has promised to whoever shall slay me. I have surrendered; I am yours. But you are bold men, and the bold are never mean; therefore, I will ask one thing of you. There is a man yonder, in my camp, condemned to death with the dawn. He is innocent. I have ridden from Algiers to-day with the order of his release. If it is not there by sunrise he will be shot; and he is guiltless as a child unborn. My horse is worn out; he could not go another half league. I knew that, since he had failed, my comrade would perish, unless I found a fresh beast or a messenger to go in my stead. I saw your band come across the plain. I knew that you would kill me, because of your oath and of your Emir's bride; but I thought that you would have greatness enough in you to save this man who is condemned, without crime, and who must perish unless you, his foes, have pity on him. Therefore I came. Take the paper that frees him; send your fleetest and surest with it, under a flag of truce, into our camp by the dawn; let him tell them there that I, Cigarette, gave it him. He must say no word of what you have done to me, or his white flag will not protect him from the vengeance of my army—and then receive your reward from your chief, Ben-Ihreddin, when you lay my head down for his horse's hoofs to trample into the dust. Answer me—is the compact fair? Ride on with this paper northward, and then kill me with what torments you choose.”
She spoke with calm, unwavering resolve, meaning that which she uttered to its very uttermost letter. She knew that these men had thirsted for her blood; she offered it to be shed to gain for him that messenger on whose speed his life was hanging. She knew that a price was set upon her head; but she delivered herself over to the hands of her enemies so that thereby she might purchase his redemption.
As they heard, silence fell upon the brutal, clamorous herd around—the silence of amaze and of respect. The young chief listened gravely; by the glistening of his keen, black eyes, he was surprised and moved, though, true to his teaching, he showed neither emotion as he answered her.
“Who is this Frank for whom you do this thing?”
“He is the warrior to whom you offered life on the field of Zaraila because his courage was as the courage of gods.”
She knew the qualities of the desert character; knew how to appeal to its reverence and to its chivalry.