“And thou wilt not fail to render me assistance in the hour of my need?” she exclaimed.
“May Allah bear witness that I am prepared to strive towards the elucidation of thy mystery while I have breath.”
Pressing my hand with lingering tenderness, she said,—
“Thy words give peace unto me, O Zafar. Henceforth shall I rest in the knowledge that the man who is my friend is prepared to risk his life on my behalf.”
“Yea,” I answered; adding, “of a verity this meeting between enemies hath been a strange one. Hast thou not warned thy father of the approach of the hosts of the Khalifa?”
“Even on the same night as thine encampment was destroyed warning was conveyed unto him, with the result that our troops have been sent forward into the desert with the object of checking the advance of thy tribesmen.”
“They are not my clansmen,” I answered, quickly. “I am an Arab, a native of the Aures, the mountains far north beyond the Great Desert.”
“Then thou art not a Dervish?” she exclaimed, gladly.
“No,” I answered, and at the same moment remembering that the Khalifa’s troops numbered many thousands, and that it was scarcely likely that they would be turned aside in their onward march by a few squadrons of the Sultan of Sokoto, I asked,—
“Have the horsemen of the Black Standard been routed?”