I slipped to one side, and left the group.

Tarna, in her quarters, spun to face me. She was startled. She had not known I was there. I had touched the ring. A moment later, she turning, saw me, standing in the room.

“You!” she cried.

Her eyes were wild. She was distraught. She wore the mannish garb of the Tahari, save that she did not wear the wind veil nor the kafflyeh and agal. Her face and head, proud and beautiful, were bare. Her hair was wild, long, loose behind her, behind the thrown back hood of the burnoose. The garments she wore were torn and stained. The left trouser leg had been slashed. There were long scimitar slashes at the left sleeve, which hung in tatters. I did not think she had been wounded.

There was dirt at the left side of her face.

“You have come to take me!” she cried. She carried a scimitar.

“Your war is lost,” I told her. “It is done.”

She looked upon me in fury. For an instant there were tears in her eyes, bright and hot. I saw that she was a woman. Then again she was Tarna.

“Never!” she cried.

“It is true,” I told her.

“No!” she cried.

We could bear men fighting in the distance, somewhere in the corridors beyond.

“The kasbah has fallen,” I told her. “Ibn Saran is dead. Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars and Suleiman, high Pasha of the Aretai, are already within the walls.”

“I know,” she said, miserably. “I know.”

“You were relieved of your command,” I told her. “You were no longer of use.

Even those men who once served you fight now, decimated, for their lives.” I regarded her. “The kasbah has fallen,” I said.

She looked at me.

“You are alone,” I said. “It is over.”

“I know,” she said. Then she lifted her head, angrily, proudly, “How did you know where to find me?” she asked.

“I am not unfamiliar with the quarters of Tarna,” I said.

“Of course,” she said. She smiled. “And now you have come to take me,” she laughed.

“Yes,” I told her.

“Doubtless for he who brings me in, his rope on my neck, before the noble Pashas Haroun and Suleiman, there will be a high reward,” she said.

“I would suppose that would be the case,” I said.

“Fool!” she said. “Sleen! I am Tarna!” She lifted the scimitar. “I am more than a match for any man!” she cried.

I met her charge. She was not unskillful. I fended her blows. I did not lay the weight of my own steel on hers, that I not tire her arm. I let her strike, and slash, and feint and thrust. Twice she drew back suddenly in fear, almost a wince, or reflex, realizing she had exposed herself to my blade, but I had not struck her.

“You are not a match for a warrior,” I told her. It was true. I had crossed steel with hundreds of men, in practice and in the fierce games of war, who could have finished her, swiftly and with ease, had they chosen to do so.

In fury, again, she attacked.

Again I met her attack, toying with the beauty.

She wept, striking wildly. I was within her guard, the blade at her belly.

She stepped back. Again she fought. This time I moved toward her, letting her feel the weight of the steel, the weight of a man’s arm. Suddenly she found herself backed against a pillar. Her guard was down. She could scarcely lift her arm. My blade was at her breast. I stepped back. She stumbled from the pillar, wild. Again she lifted the scimitar; again she tried to attack. I met her blade, high, forcing it down; she slipped to one knee, looking up, trying to keep the blade away; she wept; she had no leverage, her strength was gone; I thrust her back, and she fell on her back before me on the tiles; my left boot, heavy, was on her right wrist; the small band opened and the scimitar slipped to the tiles; the point of the blade was at her throat.

“Stand up,” I told her.

I broke her scimitar at the hilt and flung it to a corner of the room.

She stood in the center of the room. “Put your rope on my neck,” she said. “You have taken me, Warrior.”

I walked about her, examining her. She stood, angrily, inspected.

With the blade of my scimitar I brushed back the slashed, left leg of her trousers. She had an excellent leg within.

“Please,” she said.

“Remove your boots,” I told her. In fury, she removed them. She then stood, barefoot, on the tiles in the center of the room.

“You will lead me barefoot before the Pashas?” she asked. “Is your vengeance not sweet enough, that you will so degrade me?”

“Are you not my prisoner?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Then I will do with you as I please,” I told her.

“Oh, no!” she wept.

In a moment I told her to kneel. She knelt on the tiles, her head down, her head in her bands. She was stripped completely by my scimitar.

“What have we here?’’ asked Hassan, entering the room. To my interest he had changed his garments. He no longer wore the white of the high Pasha of the Kavars but simpler garments, those which might have befitted Hassan, the outlaw of the Tahari.

“Lift your head Beauty,” said I, gently putting the point of the scimitar beneath her chin, lifting it.

She looked at Hassan, incredibly beautiful, her cheeks stained with tears.

“This is Tarna,” I said.

“So beautiful?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“The capture is yours,” said Hassan. “Put a rope on her neck.

Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars, and Suleiman, high Pasha of the Aretai, are eager to see her.”

I smiled. From within my sash I found a length of prisoner rope. It was coarse rope.

“Doubtless,” said Hassan, “Haroun, high Pasha of the Kavars, and Suleiman, high Pasha of the Aretai, will pay a high reward to the man who brings Tarna before them.”

“Doubtless,” I said.

“I have heard them crying out for her,” said Hassan.

I knotted the rope about the beauty’s neck. She was mine.

Hassan looked down upon the stripped, tethered beauty.

“I do not want to die,” she suddenly cried. “I do not want to die!”

She put her head down, in her hands. She wept.

“The punishment for breaking a well,” said Hassan, “is not light.”

Tarna, shuddering, wept, her head to the floor, my rope on her neck.

“Come, Female,” I said. I jerked her head up, by the rope. “We must go to see the Pashas.”

“Is there no escape?” she wept.

“There is no escape for you,” I said. “You have been taken.”

“Yes,” she said, numbly, “I have been taken.”

“Are you thinking, Hassan,” I asked, “what I am? That there might be one hope for her life?”

“Perhaps,” grinned Hassan.

“What?” cried Tama. “What!”

“No,” I said. “It is too horrifying.”

“What!” she cried.

“Forget it,” I said.

“Forget it,” agreed Hassan. “You would never approve. You are too proud, too noble and fine.”

I jerked on the rope, as though to draw Tarna to her feet, in order to lead her to the presence of the Pashas.

“What!” she cried.

“Better torture and impalement on the walls of the kasbah at Nine Wells,” said Hassan.

“What?” wept Tarna.

“It is too horrifying, too terrible, too utterly degrading, too sensual,” I said.

“What?” wept the tethered beauty. “Oh, what?”

“On the lower levels,” said Hassan, “I understand that slave girls are kept.”

“Yes,” said Tarna “for the pleasures of my men.”

“You no longer have men,” I reminded her.

“I see!” cried Tarna. “I might be slipped among them!”

“It is a chance,” admitted Hassan.

“But I am not branded!” wept Tarna.

“That can be arranged,” said Hassan.

She looked at him with horror. “But then,” she said, “I would truly be a slave.”

“I knew you would not approve,” said Hassan.

I jerked at the rope on the beauty’s neck. Her chin was pulled up. The knot was under her jaw on the right, turning her head to the left. “No,” she said. “No!”

We looked at her.