swiftly to battle, with a panting noise; and by those who strike fire
by dashing their hoofs against the stones; and by those who make a
sudden invasion on the enemy early in the morning and therein raise the
dust, and therein pass through the midst of the adverse troops_ . . . .
by the Message of the Great Book and by my love will I wrest one hour
from life."

And urging the mare with the whip of love to the uttermost of her
wonderful speed, he thundered back across the path of sand, which was
to be trodden by his feet alone, in spite of the plots which Zulannah
the courtesan was even then weaving about him--to her own advancement.




CHAPTER VII

"_. . . . and she painted her face, and tired her
head, and looked out at a window_."

II KINGS.


The house of the "Scarlet Enchantress," with its balconies, turrets and
outer and inner courts, stood quite by itself at one corner of the
Square, in a big, neglected garden. It had been built by means of
untold gold and the destruction of scores of miserable, picturesque
hovels, which, poor as they might be, had however meant home to many of
the needy in the Arabian quarters of Cairo. It would be useless to
look for that building covered in white plaster now; it was, later,