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They were Ibraheim Omair's men who had trapped them, and he cursed his folly in allowing Diana to come so far. Yet it had seemed safe enough. The scout's reports had lately proved that the robber Sheik had up to now respected the boundary line between the two territories. This must be a sudden tentative raid which had met with unlooked-for success.
Ibraheim Omair's tribe, with their leader dead, had broken up and scattered far to the south; there was no chief to keep them together and no headman strong enough to draw them round a new chieftain, for Ibraheim had allowed no member of his tribe to attain any degree of wealth or power that might prove him a rival; so they had split up into numerous small bands lacking cohesion.
She felt physically sick for a moment, but she fought it down. Very slowly she raised her head, and, meeting Ibraheim Omair's eyes fixed on her, she looked full at him across the dead woman's body and laughed! It was that or shriek. The curls were clinging drenched on her forehead, and she wondered if her clenched hands would ever unclose.
With the cold ring of steel pressing against his forehead the robber chief's hands dropped from Diana, and she slid weak and trembling on to the rug, clasping her pulsating throat, moaning with the effort that it was to breathe. For a moment the two men looked into each other's eyes and the knowledge of death leaped into Ibraheim Omair's.
I need more appliances than I have with me, and we are too few to stay and risk a possible attack if there are others of Ibraheim Omair's men in the neighbourhood." Diana looked down on the wounded man fearfully. "But the ride the jolting," she gasped. "It has got to be risked," replied Saint Hubert abruptly.
Perhaps amongst the still forms from which the jackals, whose hideous yelling they had heard, had slunk away, there might be one left with life enough to give some news. One of his own men who would speak willingly, or one of Ibraheim Omair's who would be made to speak. His lips curled back from his white teeth in a grin of pure cruelty.
His voice and the knowledge of his nearness gave her new strength. She leaped up in spite of Ibraheim Omair's gripping hands. "Ahmed!" she screamed once, then the chief's hand dashed against her mouth, but, frantic, she caught it in her teeth, biting it to the bone, and as he wrenched it away, shrieked again, "Ahmed! Ahmed!"
They and others who had from time to time fallen victims to Ibraheim Omair's hatred of his more powerful enemy.
To lift her head was agony, and the effort brought back the black mist that had lessened with the slackening of Ibraheim Omair's fingers round her neck, but it cleared again sufficiently for her to see, through a blurring haze, the outline of the tall figure that was facing her, standing by the ripped-back doorway.
The fear of him was wiped out in the fear for him. She tried to warn him, but no sound would come from her throbbing throat, and she crawled nearer to him and touched him. He dropped the dead chief back into the tumbled cushions and looked up swiftly, and at the same moment Ibraheim Omair's men made a rush. Without a word he thrust her behind the divan and turned to meet them.
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