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So they coursed away, speeding behind their Chief and Bhanavar; sweet were the desert herbs under their crushing hooves! Ere the shadow of the acacia measured less than its height they came upon a spring of silver water, and Ruark leaped from his steed, and Bhanavar from hers, and they performed their ablutions by that spring, and ate and drank, and watered their steeds.
And I will release Ruark, and espouse him, and war with kings, sultans, emperors, infidels, subduing them till they worship me.
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.
Oh that a cloud would fall, a smoke arise, to blind these hosts, that I might sling my serpents on him unseen, for I will not be vanquished, though it be by Ruark! So she drew to the King, and the altercation between them was fierce in the fury of the battle, he saying, ''Tis a feint of the Chief, this challenge; and I must succour the left of my army by the well, that he is overmatching with numbers'; and she, 'If thou head them not, then will I, and thou shalt behold a woman do what thou durst not, and lose her love and win her scorn. While they spake the Arabs they looked on seemed to flutter and waver, and the Chief was backing to them, calling to them as 'twere words of shame to rally them.
Such was the onset of Ruark, his stroke the stroke of death; and ere the echoes had ceased rolling from that cry of his, the mountain-warriors were scattered before him on the narrow way, hurled down the scrub of the mountain, even as dead leaves and loosened stones; so like an arm of lightning was the Chief! Now Ruark pursued them, and was lost to Bhanavar round a slope of the mountain.
And I will release Ruark, and espouse him, and war with kings, sultans, emperors, infidels, subduing them till they worship me.
O thou soul of wrath! Ruark, my fire-eye! my eagle of the desert! where is one on earth beloved as thou art by Bhanavar? The dark light in his eyes kindled as light in the eyes of a lion, and she continued, 'Ruark, what a yoke is hers who weareth this crown! He that is my lord, how am I mated to him save in loathing?
Surely when my father appointed the warriors to lie in wait for thy coming, I slipped among them, so that they thought it ordered by him I should head them. The rest is known to thee, O my fountain of blissfulness! but the treachery to Ruark was the treachery of Ebn Asrac, not of such warriors as we; and I would have fallen on Ebn Asrac, had not Ruark so routed that man without faith.
In such-wise are the powerful known among men, they that stand very prominent in the beams of prosperity! Now this of myself; but for thee of a surety the Queen Bhanavar, my mistress, will be here by the time of the rising of the moon. In the name of Allah! Saying that he departed in his greatness, and Ruark watched for her that rose in his soul as the moon in the heavens.
Ruark stooped to her and said, 'Tell me thy name. She answered, 'Bhanavar is my name with that people. And he whispered, 'Surely when they speak of thee they say not Bhanavar solely, but Bhanavar the Beautiful? She started and sought the eye of the Chief, and it was fixed on her face in a softened light, as if his soul had said that thing.
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