See that you guard her as you should, and when the journey is
done, return and make report to me. Farewell."
Then, lifting his staff, without speaking another word to Tua or to
Asti, Kepher strode away from amongst them, walking through the ranks
of the Desert men who forced their camels to kneel and saluted him as he
passed. Presently they saw him standing alone upon a ridge, and looking
towards them for a while. Then of a sudden he was gone.
"Who is that man, O Captain, at whose bidding the wilderness swarms
with tribesmen and kings are brought to doom?" asked Asti when she had
watched him disappear.
"Lady," he answered, "I cannot tell you, but from the beginning he has
been Master of the Desert, and those who dwell therein. At his word the
sandwind blows as it blew yesterday to cover our advance, at his word
the fountains spring and tribes grow great or sink to nothingness. We
think that he is a spirit who moves where he lists, and executes the
decrees of heaven. At the least, though they but see him from time to
time, all the dwellers in the wilderness obey him, as we do, and ill
does it go, as you have learned, with those dwellers in cities who know
not the power which breathes beneath that tattered robe.
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