about her with rapid eyes, murmuring, ’Oh, what a Chief is he!  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.  Seeing this, Mashalleed charged against the Chief once more, and lo! the Arabs opened to receive him, closing on his band of warriors like waters whitened by the storm on a fleet of swift-scudding vessels:  and there was a dust and a tumult visible, such as is seen in the darkness when a vessel struck by the lightning-bolt is sinking—­flashes of steel, lifting of hands, rolling of horsemen and horses.  Then Bhanavar groaned aloud, ’They are lost!  Shame to us! only one hope is left-that ‘tis Ruark, this Chief!’ Now, the view of the plain cleared, and with it she beheld the army of Mashalleed broken, the King borne down by a dust of Arabs; so she unveiled her face and rode on the host with the horsemen that guarded her, glorious with a crown of gold and the glowing Jewel on her brow.  When she was a javelin’s flight from them the Arabs shouted and paused in terror, for the light of her head was as the sun setting between clouds of thunder; but that Chief dashed forward like a flame beaten level by the wind, crying, ’Bhanavar; Bhanavar!’ and she knew the features of Ruark; so she said, ‘Even I!’ And he cried again, ‘Bhanavar!  Bhanavar!’ and was as one stricken by a shaft.  Then Bhanavar threw on him certain of the horsemen with her, and he suffered them without a sign to surround him and grasp his mare by the bridle-rein, and bring him, disarmed, before the Queen.  At sight of Ruark a captive the Arabs fell into confusion, and lost heart, and were speedily chased and scattered from the scene like a loose spray before the wind; but Mashalleed the King rejoiced mightily and praised Bhanavar, and the whole army of the King praised her, magnifying her.

Now, with Ruark she interchanged no syllable, and said not farewell to him when she departed with Mashalleed, to encounter other tribes; and the Chief was bound and conducted a prisoner to the city of the inland sea, and cast into prison, in expectation of Death the releaser, and continued there wellnigh a year, eating the bitter bread of captivity.  In the evening of every seventh day there came to him a little mountain girl, that sat by him and leaned a lute to her bosom, singing of the mountain and the desert, but he turned his face from her to the wall.  One day she sang of Death the releaser, and Ruark thought, ’’Tis come! she warneth me!  Merciful is Allah!’ On the morning that followed Ukleet entered the cell, and with him three slaves, blacks, armed with scimitars.  So Ruark stood up and bore witness to his faith, saying, ‘Swift with the stroke!’ but Ukleet exclaimed, ‘Fear not! the end is not yet.’