The sun was hot and the mighty Sheik Abdul-Basir Hakim, scourge of the high seas and enslaver of the infidel, was thirsty as a sweating Turkish peasant laboring in the wheat fields of Izmir.
A great lord should never know thirst, and Hakim felt a burning resentment.
He drew rein on his tired horse and stared across shimmering heat to the distant mountains, sharply outlined against the sky like a broken saw blade. He made a face. “Pah!” The mountains were not for him, deserted by God and man. He was a prince of the sea and that was where his destiny lay.
The pursuit must be over, Hakim decided. The infidels would not chase him and the woman far in any case. And if they caught up, what then? The sheik smiled. The unbelievers would not try too hard, for they feared him as women fear the desert lion and dare not venture too close to his claws and fangs. He could turn south and make a loop toward the coast. He had more than enough gold coins in his money belt to see him home.
Pretending a concern she did not feel, Julia interrupted the sheik’s thoughts. “Leave me here. I’m only slowing you down.”
Hakim smiled. “The thought is tempting and I’ve already considered it. But I may keep you as a concubine for a while.” He nuzzled Julia’s neck. “The desert heat brings out the fragrance of a woman’s skin as the spring rain does a flower.”
Julia’s anger flared and she tried to push the man away from her. “Leave me the hell alone!” she yelled, pounding her fists on the Arab’s chest.
“A tigress,” Hakim grinned. “But I’ll soon tame you with the whip.”
“You’ll never have a moment’s rest,” Julia promised. “I’ll kill you in your sleep.”
The sheik thought this vastly amusing and tilted back his head, roaring with laughter as he swung his horse away from the mountains and took the direction he favored. The animal was exhausted, and the sheik drew his sword and slapped its lathered flanks with the flat of the blade. His mount broke into a shambling trot, and Hakim pushed it into a canter.
He’d kill the horse, he knew, but, Allah willing, not until he was within sight of the sea.
An hour later, as the sun hung like a brass ball in the sky to the west, Hakim glanced behind him and the blood in his veins froze. A large dust cloud kicked up by many feet spun into the air just a mile or so behind him. The sheik’s eyes narrowed. Was it the infidels? The seamen from the accursed ship that had ruined all his plans?
Damn its soul to hell, his horse was dying under him, wheezing and lathered white. It could not last much longer. How many miles could he beat out of it?
Hakim shook his head. Not many. The sorry beast was on its last legs.
But then a thought came to the sheik that made him smile. The American sailors would not dare chase him across the desert. That much was clear. But his loyal crew would—those who had escaped the infidel cannons.
That was it! His own men were on his trail, raising a cloud of dust as they hurried to be with him.
Hakim grinned. Allah be praised! Now he was no hunted fugitive but a warlord with followers who would die for him.
“Look,” he cried to Julia. “Allah be praised! My men are coming for me! We will go greet them so they may once again bask in the presence of their lord.” He slapped his horse with his sword and the animal lurched forward.
Shrieking the undulating battle cry of the Bedouin, Hakim beat the horse into a canter and its hooves pounded over hard-packed sand. As he drew closer he expected to hear answering cries from his men. But the dust cloud came on in silence, relentless as a wave at sea.
Suddenly, Hakim was wary. Through gaps in the yellow cloud he caught glimpses of white-clad legs, not the black sailor pants of his crew.
He savagely drew rein and studied the dust more closely and the ugly truth dawned on him. They were rabbits! The filthy Mexican peons he’d hunted for sport.
Once again Hakim’s sword slithered from the scabbard. He raised the shining blade above his head and snarled his rage. He would scatter the vile peasant rabble like wheat chaff in a wind.
The mighty lord Hakim threw Julia from the saddle, roared his battle cry, and charged.
The horse was a big American stud named Blue Boy, and he’d been born and raised in the green pastures of Kentucky. Bred for speed and stamina, he’d been a hired gunman’s charger since he was four years old and he’d proven himself time and time again in battle or in the chase.
But even Blue Boy’s strong heart could not take the punishment Hakim had dealt him.
Fifty yards from the dust cloud . . . he faltered and pecked a couple of times.
Thirty yards . . . his breathing was labored, and his knees started to buckle.
Twenty yards . . . Blue Boy’s noble heart burst, and he was already dead when he cartwheeled to the ground and threw Hakim over his head.
Sheik Abdul-Basir Hakim lay stunned for a few moments, his sword a couple of yards away from him. He saw the Mexicans running toward him, blades in their hands, and he dived for his scimitar.
Too late.
Hands reached out for Hakim and tore off his clothes. He sprawled on the sand naked as the day he was born.
Bellowing his anger, he fought the peons and struggled to get to his feet, determined to die like a warrior, not a dog.
But a dozen men, who badly wanted to kill him like a dog, dragged him to a hedgehog cactus and threw him on top of its spines. Men hauled at his wrists and ankles and Hakim was spreadeagled. He roared his outrage at a great and mighty lord being given such treatment.
Then the old women came to him and Hakim began to taste fear.
They were survivors from the village he’d ravaged and mothers of the men he’d killed on his rabbit hunt. He looked into their faces and saw no mercy, only a silent hate burning in their eyes like black fire.
The lord Hakim did not scream when cactus spines were forced into his skin and set alight, a trick the Mexicans had learned from the Apaches who had taught them much.
He did not scream as the women, solemn as the Sphinx, their faces empty of expression, used their knives to cut slices from his skin.
He did not scream when the wife of the dead village blacksmith showed him the iron hammer that would soon shatter his bones.
But when the honed knives began to carve away his manhood . . .
Well, Sheik Abdul Basir-Hakim screamed then all right.