Mashalleed gathered round his standard the chosen of his warriors, and smoothed his beard, and headed them.  Then the Chief struck his lance behind him, and stretched rapidly a half-circle across the sand, and halted on a knoll.  When they neared him he retreated in a further half-circle, and continued this wise, wasting the fury of Mashalleed, till he stood among his followers.  There, as the King hesitated and prepared to retreat, he and the others of the tribe levelled their lances and hung upon his rear, fretting them, slaughtering captains of the troop.  When Mashalleed turned to face his pursuer, the Chief was alone, immovable on his mare, fronting the ranks.  Then Bhanavar taunted the King, and he essayed the capture of that Chief a second time and a third, and it was each time as the first.  Bhanavar looked 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.