'My wounds are slight, and I am not weary,' Khaled answered. 'When the smith has heated the iron in the forge, does he wait until it is cold before striking?' 'But think also of the soldiers, who have striven hard, and cannot thus go out upon a great expedition without preparation as well as rest.' 'I will take those whom I can find. And if they will go with me, it is well. But if not, I will go alone, and they and the rest will follow after.' 'It is summer, too,' said Zehowah, keeping him back. 'Is this a time to go out into the northern desert? Both men and beasts will perish by the way.' 'Has not Allah bound every man's fate about his neck? And can a man cast it from him?' 'I know not otherwise, but if heat and hunger and thirst do not kill the men, they will certainly destroy the beasts, whose names are not recorded by Asrael, and who have no destiny of their own.' 'You hinder me,' said Khaled. 'And yet you do not know how many of the Shammar may be yet lurking within a day's march of the city, slaying your people, burning their houses and destroying their harvest. Let me go. Will you love me better if I stay?' 'You will be the better able to get the victory.' 'Will you love me better if I stay?' 'If you go now, you may fail in your purpose and perish as well. How could I love you at all then?' 'It is the victory you love then--not me?' 'Could I love defeat? Nay, do not be angry with me. Stay here at least until the evening. Think of the burning sun and the raging thirst and the smarting of your wounds which have only been dressed this first time. Think of the soldiers, too----' 'They can bear what I can bear. Was it not summer-time when the Prophet went out against the Romans?' 'I do not know. Stay with me, Khaled.' 'I will come back when I have destroyed the Shammars.' 'And if the soldiers will not go with you, will you indeed go out alone?' 'Yes. I will go alone. When they see that they will follow me. They are not foxes. They are brave men.' Khaled rose and girt his sword about him. Zehowah helped him, seeing that she could not persuade him to stay. 'Farewell,' he said, shortly, and without so much as touching her hand he turned and went out. She followed him to the door of the room and stood watching as he went away. 'One of us two was to rule,' she said to herself, 'and it is he, for I cannot move him. But what is this talk of love? Does he need love, who is himself the master?' She sighed and went back to the carpet on which they had been sitting. Then she called in her women and bid them tell her all they had heard about the fight in the morning; and they, thinking to please her, extolled the deeds of Khaled and of the tens he had slain they made hundreds, and of the thousands of the enemy's army, they made tens of thousands, till the walls of Riad could not have contained the hosts of which they spoke, and the dry sand of the desert could not have drunk all the blood which had been shed.