Page:Harold Lamb--The House of the Falcon.djvu/196

 the counter-raids, the fierce religious zeal which led men to slay each other.

But she did not know that Yakka Arik had been inviolate from the surges of intertribal warfare, and this because of one thing. Fear. Nor was she aware of the deep spirit of protection for their womenfolk that dwelt in the hearts of the Sayaks.

Edith, because she did not understand, did not make allowance for the code of these men—an eye for an eye, a blow for a blow, a life for a life.

Her heart was beating clamorously as she slipped past scattered groups of turbaned, swarthy men who scarcely looked at her, owing to the general reluctance to gaze even upon a veiled woman who belonged to another man.

So she walked slowly across the dusty space in front of the mosque. The stone arch rose before her. Armed men, standing beside the gigantic trumpets that Donovan had called the "horns of Jericho," looked down at her grimly from the balcony over the entrance. For a second the girl hesitated, feeling the eyes of the guards upon her.

For the first time she experienced an acute foreboding. Had the watching sentinels who scrutinized each newcomer, fingering their weapons, succeeded in penetrating her disguise?

Then she heard quick footsteps in the sand, and a tiny figure drew near her, running toward the mosque. A Sayak child, seven or eight years of age, had fallen behind the groups of older worshipers. Realizing that her hesitation was attracting the attention of the watchers, Edith took the hand of the boy and advanced beside him toward the arch. He looked up at her playfully and trotted on manfully, perceiving no