Page:The Mating of the Blades.djvu/199



“Ikhs ya'l khammar—O thou drunkard!” ludicrously to a frenzied, plunging stallion—

“Allahu—Allahu!”—

“Bismillah irrahmân errahmin!”—and, clear above the turmoil, Mr. Preserved Higgins nasal, twangy “I say—wot the 'ell's up?”, then, to a frantic Nubian: “Get off my feet, you bleedin' swine!”, blending fantastically, ridiculously with Abderrahman Yahiah Khan's full-flavored curses as he pushed his way through the crowd with fist and elbow.

“Give way—give way there!”

The governor reached the side of the gunner who, tense, quivering, was still bending over his weapon, drawing a bead straight toward the east, while the soldiers, under Tollemache Wade's sharp commands, were deploying in a half circle, rifles ready for the “Fire!”

By this time Mr. Preserved Higgins, too, had reached the gunner's side.

He looked.

Far in the east, a blast of sirocco wind filled with stabbing, biting particles of desert sand had whirled up on the feathery sky line. A mass of violet-red nimbus, furrowed horizontally by a thin, wavery gray line of mist cloud, and nicked with gold and yellow, as of the sun mirroring on polished weapons, rolled down, steadily gathering momentum.

There was a savage humming and zumming and roaring. Too, sudden, grimly staccato noises—like steel clanking against steel—swords—lance butts—

“War!” Musa Al-Mutasim came running up with great speed, in spite of his huge, amorphous bulk,