Yezid grinned more savagely than ever; and Mary closed her eyes that she might not see his leer.
"I have sworn it," cried he. "This once must you sons of Eblees give way. I like the girl well. Not for an hundred purses would I part with her. Is she not my captive? shall I not bear her away to the mountains where is our camp, and the other women?"
Mary closed her eyes tighter. She knew then, if not before, that it had been a mad boast indeed when she said to Morgiana, "Naught can befall me worse than I suffer here at El Halebah." The evening before she had been hailed princess, sovereign of thousands—and now! Her eyes she could close; not her ears, and the foul speech of the angry Syrians smote them, though her sense grew numb by sheer agony. Louder and louder the quarrel. Presently she heard a great shout from Yezid.
"By the Beard of Mohammed! either you shall give the girl up to me, to work my will, or my cimeter is in her breast." His clutch tightened, and Mary saw through her eyelashes a bright blade held before her. "Death at last, the Blessed Mother be praised!" and she closed her eyes, and tried to murmur the words of "Our Father." But the voice of Zubair grew conciliatory. "Valiant captain, not so angry. You have the chief claim, but not the only one. Let us not broil, good comrades that we are. True the Prophet—on whom be peace—forbids dice; but Allah will be compassionate, and I have some about me. Let us cast for the maid. You win and possess her. We,—she goes to Hamath, and the sale's money is divided amongst us five!"
Yezid began to growl in his beard, but the shout of the rest silenced him. "Let it be as you said!" he muttered. And Mary, opening her eyes, now saw Zubair and the chief standing by the rock, and shaking the dice in the hollows of their hands. How strange it all looked! On the cast of four bits of ivory her own weal or woe was hanging! The fortune of her—a Grecian princess, a baroness of France, a Sultana of the Ismaelians! Was it not a dream? One cast,—a curse from Zubair. A second,—Yezid smiled and smirked toward her. Again Zubair cast,—again he cursed; and when Yezid lifted his hand he gave a loud, beastly laugh.
"Praises be to Allah! You have all lost. This houri, comes she here from the clouds or from Aleppo, is mine. Ya! I can wait no more to kiss her!" But just as Mary felt sight and sound reeling when he seized her, there was a great howl from the Syrians.
"Flight! To horse! O Allah, save!" And down the eastern road Mary saw, not six, but sixty, cavalrymen in headlong gallop; all with white robes and turbans, and at the head a rider whose armor was bright as the sun.
"Away, my peacock!" shouted Yezid, who, even in that moment, tried to swing Mary into his saddle before him. But as the words sped from his sinful throat, a shaft of Iftikhar went through his horse's flank, and the wounded beast was plunging.
"Allah akhbar!" the yell of the Ismaelians as they swept around Mary's captors, almost ere the luckless bandits could strike spur; and it was Iftikhar's own hand that plucked Mary from the clutch of Yezid.
"Bind fast!" his command. "Bismillah! what were they about to do?"