n the knowledge
of the hunter's net, crept out from beneath the meshes as his master
raised them slightly, and with bleeding head crawled to him for praise
and relief.

Then the girl, flushed with delight at this double capture, galloped to
the spot, and in that instant she recognized in the successful hunter
her cousin the exile.

"Well snared, my Odhainat," she said, as, the first exclamation of
surprise over, she stood beside the brown-faced and sturdy young hunter.
"The Palmyrean leopard hath bravely trapped both the Roman eagle and
the Persian lion. See, is it not an omen from the gods? Face valor with
valor and craft with craft, O Odhainat! Have you forgotten the vow in
your father's palace full three years ago?"

Forgotten it? Not he. And then he told Bath Zabbai how in all his
wanderings he had kept their vow in mind, and with that, too, her other
words of counsel, "Watch and Wait." He told her that, far and wide, he
was known to all the Arabs of the desert and the Armenians of the hills,
and how, from sheikh to camel-boy, the tribes were ready to join with
Palmyra against both Rome and Persia.

"Your time will indeed come, my Odhainat," said the fearless girl,
with proud looks and ringing voice. "See, even thus our omen gives the
proof," and she pointed to the net, beneath whose meshes both eagle and
lion, fluttering and panting, lay wearied with their struggles, while
the cheetah kept watch above them. "Now make your peace with Hairan,
your brother; return to Palmyra once again, and still let us watch and
wait."

Three more years passed. Valerian, Emperor of Rome, leading his legions
to war with Sapor, whom men called the "Great King," had fallen a
victim to the treachery and traps of the Persian monarch, and was held
a miserable prisoner in the Persian capital, where, richly robed in the
purple of the Roman emperors and loaded with chains, he was used by
the savage Persian tyrant as a living horse-block for the sport of an
equally savage court. In Palmyra, Hairan was dead, and young Odhainat,
his brother, was now Septimus Odaenathus--"headman" of the city and to
all appearances the firm friend of Rome.

There were great rejoicings in Palmyra when the wise Zenobia--still
scarce more than a girl--and the fearless young "head-man" of the desert
republic were married in the marble city of the palm-trees, and her
shrewd counsels brought still greater triumphs to Odaenathus and to
Palmyra.

In the great m