He often saves me the trouble of killing my own curs.

Take a flag of truce and this paper, and never draw rein till you reach him, if your beast drop dead at the end." The Chasseur saluted, took the paper, bowed with a certain languid, easy grace that camp life never cured him of, and went.

He knew that the man who should take the news of his treasure's loss to the Emir Ilderim would, a thousand to one, perish by every torture desert cruelty could frame, despite the cover of the white banner.
Chateauroy looked after him, as he and his horse passed from the French camp in the full burning tide of noon.
"If the Arabs kill him," he thought, "I will forgive Ilderim five seasons of rebellion." The Chasseur, as he had been bidden, never drew rein across the scorching plateau.

He rode to what he knew was like enough to be death, and death by many a torment, as though he rode to a midnight love-tryst.
His horse was of Arab breed--young, fleet, and able to endure extraordinary pressure, both of spur and of heat.

He swept on, far and fast, through the sickly, lurid glitter of the day, over the loose sand, that flew in puffs around him as the hoofs struck it flying right and left.