in his falcon-eye, and he rode with heels alert on the flanks of his
mare, dashing onward to right and left, as do they that beat the jungle
for the crouching tiger. Once, when he was well-nigh half a league in
front, he wheeled his mare, and raced back full on Bhanavar, grasping her
bridle, and hissing between his teeth, 'Not a soul shall have thee save
I: by the tomb of my fathers, never, while life is with us!'

And he taunted her with bitter names, and was as one in the madness of
intoxication, drunken with the aspect of her matchless beauty and with
exceeding love for her. And Bhanavar knew that the dread of a mishap was
on the mind of the Chief.

Now, the space of pasture was behind them a broad lake of gold and
jasper, and they entered a region of hills, heights, and fastnesses,
robed in forests that rose in rounded swells of leafage, each over each--
above all points of snow that were as flickering silver flames in the
farthest blue. This was the country of Bhanavar, and she gazed
mournfully on the glades of golden green and the glens of iron blackness,
and the wild flowers, wild blossoms, and weeds well known to her that
would not let her memory rest, and were wistful of what had been. And
she thought, 'My sisters tend the flocks, my mother spinneth with the
maidens of the tribe, my father hunteth; how shall I come among them but
strange? Coldly will they regard me; I shall feel them shudder when they
take me to their bosoms.'

She looked on Ruark to speak with him, but the mouth of the Chief was set
and white; and even while she looked, cries of treason and battle arose
from the Arabs that were ahead, hidden by a branching wind of the way
round a mountain slant. Then the eyes of the Chief reddened, his
nostrils grew wide, and the darkness of his face was as flame mixed with