firebrand was hurled among sleeping encampments, and
defenseless women were torn from their rest by the unsparing hands
of pitiless soldiers. But the torture which shook for a second the
steel-knit frame of this Arab passed all that he had dreamed as
possible; it was mute, and held in bonds of iron, for the sake of the
desert pride of a great ruler's majesty; but it spoke more than any
eloquence ever spoke yet on earth.

With a wild, shrill yell, the Bedouins whirled their naked sabers above
their heads, and rushed down on the bearer of this shame to their chief
and their tribe. The Chasseur did not seek to defend himself. He sat
motionless. He thought the vengeance just.

The Sheik raised his sword, and signed them back, as he pointed to the
white folds of the flag. Then his voice rolled out like thunder over the
stillness of the plains:

"But that you trust yourself to my honor I would rend you limb from
limb. Go back to the tiger who rules you, and tell him that--as Allah
liveth--I will fall on him, and smite him as he hath never been smitten.
Dead or living, I will have back my own. If he take her life, I will
have ten thousand lives to answer it; if he deal her dishonor, I will
light such a holy war through the length and breadth of the land that
his nation shall be driven backward like choked dogs into the sea, and
perish from the face of the earth for evermore. And this I swear by the
Law and the Prophet!"

The menace rolled out, imperious as a monarch's, thrilling through the
desert hush. The Chasseur bent his head, as the words closed. His own
teeth were tightly clinched, and his face was dark.

"Emir, listen to one word," he said briefly. "Shame has been done to
me as to you. Had I been told what words I bore, they had never been
brought by my hand. You know me. You have had the marks of my steel, as
I have had the marks of yours. Trust me in this, Sidi. I pledge you
my honor that, before the sun sets, she shall be given back to you
unharmed, or I will return here myself, and your tribe shall slay me
in what fashion they will. So alone can she be saved uninjured. Answer,
will you have faith in me?"

The desert chief looked at him long; sitting motionless as a statue on
his stallion, with the fierce gleam of his eyes fixed on the eyes of
the man who so long had been his foe in contests whose chivalry equaled
their daring. The Chasseur never wavered once under the set, piercing,
ruthless gaze.

Then th