Terence O'Rourke, Gentleman Adventurer
that he had no choice; besides, he promised himself he would return at the head of his warriors, regain the dun racer, and wipe the invaders off the face of the desert.
Madame la Princesse was on the back of the pack camel, securely bound, both to prevent her falling and to render futile any attempt at escape she might be minded to make.
Ibeni looked up at her; she was dry-eyed now, had ceased her lamentations, sat deep sunken in despair; she moved her head painfully, looking ever to the rear, in an agony of hope of rescue.
She was very fair to the eyes of the Ibeni; and his eyes glistened. After all, he considered, it was worth the sacrifice of a dun racer to win such a beauty. Indeed, she was worth many racers. He recalled that he had once traded six pack animals, such as madame rode, and a black dromedary, for a girl of the tribe of Oulad-Nail, who had run away with a lover as soon as occasion offered.
And she had been as nothing—as the stars to the moon—compared with this fair daughter of the Franks.
The sun was mounting; there was naught for it but the weary journey of some twenty miles over the blistering desert to Zamara, the next oasis, where his men were awaiting him. Certainly, it was no great hardship for him to walk that distance—he, Ibeni, who had walked the burning sands since he could toddle.
Thus he contented himself, and, with his hand upon the lanyard of the pack animal, the camel obediently stepped out at a fair pace, Ibeni pattering swiftly by its head.
After some time they left the gully; El Kebr was out of sight by then—only the waving tips of her hundred-foot palms broke the sky line behind them, to the east.
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