автордың кітабын онлайн тегін оқу  Khaled, A Tale of Arabia

Francis Marion Crawford

I

Khaled stood in the third heaven, which is the heaven of pre­cious stones, and of As­rael, the an­gel of Death. In the midst of the light shed by the fruit of the trees As­rael him­self is sit­ting, and will sit un­til the day of the re­sur­rec­tion from the dead, writ­ing in his book the names of those who are to be born, and blot­ting out the names of those who have lived their years and must die. Each of the trees has sev­enty thou­sand branches, each branch bears sev­enty thou­sand fruits, each fruit is com­posed of sev­enty thou­sand dia­monds, ru­bies, em­er­alds, car­buncles, jacinths, and other pre­cious stones. The stature and pro­por­tions of As­rael are so great that his eyes are sev­enty thou­sand days’ jour­ney apart, the one from the other.

Khaled stood mo­tion­less dur­ing ten months and thir­teen days, wait­ing un­til As­rael should rest from his writ­ing and look to­wards him. Then came the holy night called Al Kadr, the night of peace in which the Koran came down from heaven. As­rael paused, and rais­ing his eyes from the scroll saw Khaled stand­ing be­fore him.

As­rael knew Khaled, who was one of the genii con­ver­ted to the faith on hear­ing Mo­hammed read the Koran by night in the val­ley Al Nakh­lah. He wondered, how­ever, when he saw him stand­ing in his pres­ence; for the genii are not al­lowed to pass even the gate of the first heaven, in which the stars hang by chains of gold, each star be­ing in­hab­ited by an an­gel who guards the en­trance against the ap­proach of dev­ils.

As­rael looked at Khaled in dis­pleas­ure, there­fore, sup­pos­ing that he had eluded the heav­enly sen­tinels and con­cealed an evil pur­pose. But Khaled in­clined him­self re­spect­fully.

“There is no Al­lah but Al­lah. Mo­hammed is the prophet of Al­lah,” he said, thus de­clar­ing him­self to be of the Moslem genii, who are up­right and are true be­liev­ers.

“How camest thou hither?” asked As­rael.

“By the will of Al­lah, who sent his an­gel with me to the gate,” Khaled answered. “I am come hither that thou may­est write down my name in the book of life and death, that I may be a man on Earth, and after an ap­poin­ted time thou shalt blot it out again and I shall die.”

As­rael gazed at him and knew that this was the will of Al­lah, for the an­gels are thus im­me­di­ately made con­scious of the di­vine com­mands. He took up his pen to write, but be­fore he had traced the first let­ter he paused.

“This is the night Al Kadr,” he said. “If thou wilt, tell me there­fore thy story, for I am now at leis­ure to hear it.”

“Thou know­est that I am of the up­right genii,” Khaled answered, “and I am well dis­posed to­wards men. In the city of Riad, in Ar­a­bia, there rules a power­ful king, the Sultan of the king­dom of Ne­jed, blessed in all things save that he has no son to in­herit his vast domin­ions. One daugh­ter only has been born to him in his old age, of such mar­vel­lous beauty that even the Black Eyed Vir­gins en­closed in the fruit of the tree Sedrat, who wait for the com­ing of the faith­ful, would seem but mor­tal wo­men be­side her. Her eyes are as the deep wa­ter in the wells of Zobeideh when it is night and the stars are re­flec­ted therein. Her hair is finer than silk, red with henna, and abund­ant as the fo­liage of the young cypress tree. Her face is as fair as the ker­nels of young al­monds, and her mouth is sweeter than the mel­low date and more fra­grant than ’Ood mingled with am­ber­gris. She pos­sesses moreover all the vir­tues which be­come wo­men, for she is as mod­est as she is beau­ti­ful and as char­it­able as she is mod­est. From all parts of Ar­a­bia and Egypt, and from Syria and from Per­sia, and even from Samarkand, from Afgh­anistan, and from In­dia princes and kings’ sons con­tinu­ally come to ask her in mar­riage, for the fame of her beauty and of her vir­tues is as wide as the world. But her father, de­sir­ing only her hap­pi­ness, leaves the choice of a hus­band to her­self, and for a long time she re­fused all her suit­ors. For there is in the palace at Riad a cer­tain secret cham­ber from which she can ob­serve all those who come and hear their con­ver­sa­tion and see the gifts which they bring with them.

“At last there came as a suitor an un­be­liever, a prince of an is­land by the shores of In­dia, beau­ti­ful as the moon, whose speech was honey, and who sur­passed all the suit­ors in riches and in the mag­ni­fi­cence of the presents he brought. For he came bear­ing with him a hun­dred pounds’ weight of pure gold, and five hun­dred ounces of am­ber­gris, and a great weight of musk and aloes and san­dal wood, and rich gar­ments without num­ber, and many woven shawls of Kash­mir, of which the least splen­did was val­ued at a thou­sand sherifs of gold. An in­nu­mer­able ret­inue ac­com­pan­ied him, and twenty ele­phants, and horses without num­ber, be­sides camels.

“The Sultan’s daugh­ter be­held this beau­ti­ful prince from her secret hid­ing-place, and all that he had brought with him. The Sultan re­ceived him with kind­ness and hos­pit­al­ity, but as­sured him that un­less he would re­nounce id­ol­atry and em­brace the true faith he could not hope to suc­ceed in his pur­pose. Thereupon he was much cast down, and soon af­ter­wards, hav­ing re­ceived mag­ni­fi­cent gifts in his turn, he would have de­par­ted on his way, dis­ap­poin­ted and heavy at heart. But Ze­howah sent for her father and en­treated him to bid the young prince re­main. ‘For it is not im­possible,’ she said, ‘that he may yet be con­ver­ted to the true faith. And have I the right to re­fuse to sac­ri­fice my free­dom when the sac­ri­fice may be the means of con­vert­ing an id­olater to the right way? And if I marry him and go with him to his king­dom, shall we not make true be­liev­ers of all his sub­jects, so that I shall de­serve to be called the mother of the faith­ful like Aye­sha, be­loved by the Prophet, upon whom be peace?’ The Sultan found it hard to op­pose this ar­gu­ment which was foun­ded upon vir­tue and edi­fied in right­eous­ness. He there­fore en­treated the In­dian prince to re­main and to pro­fess Islam, prom­ising the hand of Ze­howah when he should be con­ver­ted.

“Then I heard the prince tak­ing secret coun­sel with a cer­tain old man who was with him, who shaved his face and wore white cloth­ing and ate food which he pre­pared for him­self alone. The prince told all, and then the old man coun­selled him in this way. ‘Speak what­so­ever words they re­quire of thee,’ he said, ‘for words are but gar­ments where­with to make the na­ked­ness of truth mod­est and agree­able. And take the wo­man, and by and by, when we are re­turned to our own land, if she con­sent to wor­ship thy gods, it is good; and if not, it is yet good, for thou shalt pos­sess her as thy wife, and her un­be­lief shall be of con­sequence only to her own soul, but thy soul shall not be re­tarded in its pro­gress.’ And the young prince was pleased, and prom­ised to do as his coun­sel­lor ad­vised him.

“So I saw that he was false and that Ze­howah’s right­eous­ness would be but the means to her sor­row if she were al­lowed to per­sist. There­fore in the night, when all were asleep in the palace, I entered into the room where the prince was ly­ing, and I took him in my arms and flew with him to the midst of the Red Desert, and there I slew him and bur­ied him in the sand, for I saw that he was a liar and had de­term­ined to be a hy­po­crite.

“But Al­lah im­me­di­ately sent an an­gel to des­troy me be­cause I had put to death a man who was about to be­come a be­liever, thereby killing his soul also, since he had not yet made pro­fes­sion of the faith. But I stood up and de­fen­ded my­self, say­ing that I had slain a hy­po­crite who had planned in his heart to carry away the daugh­ter of a Moslem. Then the an­gel asked the truth of the prince’s soul, which was sit­ting upon the red sand that covered the body. The soul answered, weep­ing, and said: ‘These are true words, and I am fuel for hell.’ ‘Have I then de­served death?’ I asked. ‘I have killed an un­be­liever.’ The an­gel answered that I had de­served life; and he would have left me and re­turned to para­dise, but I would not let him go, and I be­sought him to en­treat Al­lah that I might be al­lowed to live the life of a mor­tal man upon Earth. ‘For,’ I said, ‘thou say­est that I de­serve life. But even if thou des­troy me not now I am only one of the genii, who shall all die at the first blast of the trum­pet be­fore the re­sur­rec­tion of the dead. Ob­tain for me there­fore that I may have a soul and live a few years, and if I do good I shall then be with the faith­ful in para­dise; and if not, I shall be bound with red-hot chains and burn ever­last­ingly like a sin­ful man.’ The an­gel prom­ised to in­ter­cede for me and de­par­ted. So I sat down upon the mound of red sand be­side the soul of the In­dian prince, to wait for the an­gel’s com­ing again.

“Then the soul re­proached me an­grily. ‘But for thee,’ it said, ‘I should have mar­ried Ze­howah and re­turned to my own people, and al­though I pur­posed to be a hy­po­crite, yet in time Ze­howah might have con­vinced me and I should have be­lieved in my heart. For I now see that there is no Al­lah but Al­lah, and that Mo­hammed is the prophet of Al­lah. And I should per­haps have died full of years, a good Moslem, and should have entered para­dise. There­fore I pray Al­lah that this may be re­membered in thy con­dem­na­tion.’ At these words I was very angry and re­viled the soul, scoff­ing at it. ‘No doubt Al­lah will hear thy prayer,’ I answered, ‘and will hear also at the same time thy lies. And as for Ze­howah, thinkest thou that she would have loved thee, even if she had mar­ried thee? I tell thee that her soul re­joices only in the light of the faith, and that al­though she might have mar­ried thee, she would have done so in the hope of turn­ing thy people from the wor­ship of false gods and not for love of thee. For she will never love any man.’ When I had said this the soul groaned aloud and then re­mained si­lent.

“In a little while the an­gel came back, and I saw that his face was no longer clouded with an­ger. ‘Hear the judg­ment of Al­lah,’ he said. ‘Inas­much as thou tookest the law upon thy­self, which be­longed to Al­lah alone, thou de­ser­vest to die. But in so far as thou hast in­deed slain a hy­po­crite and an un­be­liever thou hast earned life. Al­lah is just, mer­ci­ful and for­giv­ing. It is not meet that in thy lot there should be noth­ing but re­ward or noth­ing but pun­ish­ment. There­fore thou shalt not yet re­ceive a soul. Go hence to the third heaven and when the an­gel As­rael shall be at leis­ure he will write thy name in the book of the liv­ing. Then thou shalt re­turn hither and go into the city of Riad bear­ing gifts. And Ze­howah will ac­cept thee in mar­riage, though she love thee not, for Al­lah com­mands that it be so. But if in the course of time this vir­tu­ous wo­man be moved to love, and say to thee, “Khaled, I love thee,” then at that mo­ment thou shalt re­ceive an im­mor­tal soul, and if thy deeds be good thy soul shall enter para­dise with the be­liev­ers, but if not, thou shalt burn. Thus saith Al­lah. Thus art thou re­war­ded, in­deed, but wisely and tem­per­ately, since thou hast not ob­tained life dir­ectly, but only the hope of life.’ Then the an­gel de­par­ted again, lead­ing the way.

“But the soul mocked me. ‘Thou that say­est of Ze­howah that she will never love any man, thou art fallen into thine own trap,’ it cried. ‘For now, if she love thee not thou must per­ish. Truly, Al­lah heard my prayer.’ But I was filled with thank­ful­ness and de­par­ted after the an­gel, leav­ing the soul sit­ting alone upon the red sand.

“Thus have I told thee my his­tory, O As­rael. And now I pray thee to write my name in the book of the liv­ing that I may ful­fil the com­mand of Al­lah and go my way to the city of Riad.”

Then As­rael again took up his pen to write in the book.

“Now thou art be­come a liv­ing man, though thou hast as yet no soul,” he said. “And thou art sub­ject to death by the sword and by sick­ness and by all those evils which spring up in the path of the liv­ing. And the day of thy death is already known to Al­lah who knows all things. But he is mer­ci­ful and will doubt­less grant thee a term of years in which to make thy trial. Never­the­less be swift in thy jour­ney and speedy in all thou doest, for though mor­tal man may live forever here­after in glory, his years on Earth are but as the breath which springs up in the desert to­wards even­ing and is gone be­fore the stars ap­pear.”

Khaled made a sa­luta­tion be­fore As­rael and went out of the third heaven, and passed through the second which is of burn­ished steel, and through the first in which the stars hang by golden chains, where Adam waits for the day of the re­sur­rec­tion, and at the gate he found the an­gel who had led him, and who now lif­ted him in his arms and bore him back to the Red Desert; for as he was now a mor­tal man he could no longer move through the air like the genii between the outer gate of heaven and the Earth. Nor could he any longer see the soul of the In­dian prince sit­ting upon the sand, though it was still there. But the an­gel was vis­ible to him. So they stood to­gether, and the an­gel spoke to him.

“Thou art now a mor­tal man,” he said, “and sub­ject to time as to death. To thee it seems but a mo­ment since we went up to­gether to the gate, and yet thou wast stand­ing ten months and thir­teen days be­fore As­rael, and of the body of the man whom thou slew­est only the bones re­main.”

So say­ing the an­gel blew upon the red sand and Khaled saw the white bones of the prince in the place where he had laid his body. So he was first made con­scious of time.

“Nearly a year has passed, and though Al­lah be very mer­ci­ful to thee, yet he will as­suredly not suf­fer thee to live bey­ond the time of other men. Make haste there­fore and de­part upon thine er­rand. Yet be­cause thou art come into the world a grown man, hav­ing neither father nor mother nor in­her­it­ance, I will give thee what is most ne­ces­sary for thy jour­ney.”

Then the an­gel took a hand­ful of leaves from a ghada bush close by and gave them to Khaled, and as he gave them they were changed into a rich gar­ment, and into linen, and into a shawl with which to make a turban, and shoes of red leather.

“Clothe thy­self with these,” said the an­gel.

He broke a twig from the bush and placed it in Khaled’s hand. Im­me­di­ately it be­came a sabre of Damas­cus steel, in a sheath of leather with a belt.

“Take this sword, which is of such fine tem­per that it will cleave through an iron head­piece and a shirt of mail. But re­mem­ber that it is not a sword made by ma­gic. Let thy ma­gic reside in thy arm, wield it for the faith, and put thy trust in Al­lah.”

After­wards the an­gel took up a lo­cust that was asleep on the sand wait­ing for the warmth of the morn­ing sun. The an­gel held the lo­cust up be­fore Khaled, and then let it fall. But as it fell it be­came at once a beau­ti­ful bay mare with round black eyes wide apart and an arch­ing tail which swept down to the sand like a river of silk.

“Take this mare,” said the an­gel; “she is of the pure breed of Ne­jed and as swift as the wind, but mor­tal like thy­self.”

“But how shall I ride her without saddle or bridle?” asked Khaled.

“That is true,” answered the an­gel.

He laid leaves of the ghada upon the mare’s back and they be­came a saddle, and placed a twig in her mouth and it turned into a bit and bridle.

Khaled thanked the an­gel and moun­ted.

“Farewell and prosper, and put thy trust in Al­lah, and for­get not the day of judg­ment,” the an­gel said, and im­me­di­ately re­turned to para­dise.

So Khaled was left alone in the Red Desert, a liv­ing man ob­liged to shift for him­self, li­able to suf­fer hun­ger and thirst or to be slain by rob­bers, with no worldly pos­ses­sions but his sword, his bay mare, and the clothes on his back. He knew moreover that he was more than two hun­dred miles from the city of Riad, and he knew that he could not ac­com­plish this jour­ney in less than four days. For when he was one of the genii he had of­ten watched men toil­ing through desert on foot, and on camels and on horses, and had laughed with his com­pan­ions at the slow pro­gress they made. But now it was no laugh­ing mat­ter, for he had for­got­ten to ask the an­gel for dates and wa­ter, or even for a few hand­fuls of bar­ley meal.

He turned the mare’s head west­ward of the Goat, in which is the po­lar star, for he re­membered that when he had car­ried away the In­dian prince he had flown to­ward the south­east, and as he began to gal­lop over the dark sand he laughed to him­self.

“What poor things are men and their horses,” he said. “To des­troy me, this mare need only stumble and lame her­self, and we shall both die of hun­ger and thirst in the desert.”

This re­flec­tion made him at first urge the mare to her greatest speed, for he thought that the sooner he should be out of the desert and among the vil­lages bey­ond, the present danger would be passed. But presently he be­thought him that the mare would be more likely to stumble and hurt her­self in the dark if she were gal­lop­ing than if she were mov­ing at a mod­er­ate pace. He there­fore drew bridle and pat­ted her neck and made her walk slowly and cau­tiously for­ward.

But this did not please him either, after a time, for he re­membered that if he rode too slowly he must die of hun­ger be­fore reach­ing the end of his jour­ney.

“Truly,” he said, “one must learn what it is to be a man, in or­der to un­der­stand the uses of mod­er­a­tion. Gal­lop not lest thy horse fall and thou per­ish! Nor delay walk­ing slowly by the road, lest thou die of thirst and hun­ger! Yet thou art not safe, for Al Walid died from tread­ing upon an ar­row, and Oda ibn Kais per­ished by per­petual sneez­ing. Al­lah is just and mer­ci­ful! I will let the mare go at her own pace, for the end of all things is known.”

The mare, be­ing left to her­self, began to canter and car­ried Khaled on­ward all night without chan­ging her gait.

“Never­the­less,” thought Khaled, “if we are not soon out of the desert we shall suf­fer thirst dur­ing the day as well as hun­ger.”

When there was enough day­light to dis­tin­guish a black thread from a white, Khaled looked be­fore him and saw that there was noth­ing but red sand in hil­locks and ridges, with ghada bushes here and there. But still the mare cantered on and did not seem tired. Soon the sun rose and it grew very hot, for the air was quite still and it was sum­mer time.

Khaled looked al­ways be­fore him and at last he saw a white patch in the dis­tance and he knew that there must be wa­ter near it. For the wa­ter of the Red Desert whitens the sand. He there­fore rode on cheer­fully, for he was now thirsty, and the mare quickened her pace, for she also knew that she was near a drink­ing-place. But as they came close to the spot Khaled re­membered that the pre­ced­ing night had been Al Kadr, which falls between the sev­enth and eighth lat­ter days of the month Ra­madhan, dur­ing which the true be­liev­ers neither eat nor drink so long as there is light enough to dis­tin­guish a white thread from a black one. So, when they reached the well, he let his mare drink her fill, and he took off the saddle and bridle and let her loose, after which he sat down with his head in the shade of a ghada bush to rest him­self.

“Al­lah is mer­ci­ful,” he said; “the night will come, and then I will drink.” For he dared not ride farther, for fear of not find­ing wa­ter again.

Then again he was dis­turbed, for he had noth­ing to eat, and he thought that if he waited un­til night he would be hungry as well as thirsty. But presently he saw the mare try­ing to catch the lo­custs that flew about. She could only catch one or two, be­cause it was now hot and they were able to fly quickly.

“When the night comes,” he said, “the lo­custs will lie on the ground and cling to the bushes, be­ing stiff with the cold, and then I will eat my fill, and drink also.”

Soon af­ter­wards he fell asleep, be­ing weary, and when he awoke it was night again and the stars were shin­ing over­head. Khaled rose hast­ily and drank at the well and made ablu­tions and prayed, pros­trat­ing him­self to­wards the Kebla. He re­membered that he had slept a long time, and that he had not per­formed his de­vo­tions for a day and a night, so that he re­peated them five times, to atone for the omis­sion.

The mare was eat­ing the lo­custs that now lay in great black patches on the sand un­able to move and save them­selves. Khaled threw his cloak over a great num­ber of them and gathered them to­gether. Then he kindled a fire of ghada by strik­ing sparks from the blade of his sword, and when he had made a bed of coals he roas­ted the lo­custs after pulling off their legs, and ate his fill. While he was do­ing this he was much dis­turbed in mind.

“I have only just be­gun to live as a man,” he thought. “Did I not stand ten months and thir­teen days in the third heaven, un­con­scious of the passing of time? Who shall tell me whether I have not slept an­other ten months or more un­der this bush, like the com­pan­ions of Al Rakim?”

So, when he had done eat­ing and had drunk again from the well, and had made the mare drink, he saddled her quickly and moun­ted, and cantered on through the night, guid­ing his course by the stars. On the fol­low­ing day he again found a well, but much later than be­fore, and he suffered much from thirst as he watched his mare dip her black lips into the pool. Never­the­less he would not break his fast, for he was re­solved to be a true be­liever in prac­tice as well as in be­lief. So he fell asleep and awoke when it was night again, and ate and drank. In this way he jour­neyed sev­eral days un­til he began to see the hill coun­try which bor­ders the desert to­wards Riad, and he un­der­stood that he had been much farther away than he had ima­gined. But he re­flec­ted that Al­lah had doubt­less in­ten­ded to try his con­stancy by im­pos­ing upon him the jour­ney through the desert dur­ing the days of fast­ing. But at last, he awoke one day just at sun­set, in­stead of sleep­ing un­til the night. He had been trav­el­ling up the first slopes where the ground, though bar­ren, is harder than in the desert, and had lain down in a hol­low by an abund­ant spring. He rose now and made ablu­tions and prayed, as usual, to­wards Mecca; that is to say, be­ing where he was, he turned his face to the west as the sun was set­ting. When he had fin­ished he stood some minutes watch­ing the red light over the desert be­low him, and then he was sud­denly aware that the new moon was hanging just above the di­min­ish­ing fire of the even­ing, and he knew that the fast of Ra­madhan was over and that the feast of Bairam had be­gun. Thereat he was glad, and de­term­ined to take an un­usual num­ber of lo­custs for his even­ing meal.

But when he looked about he saw that there were no lo­custs in the place, though there was grass, which his mare was eat­ing. Then he looked every­where near the well to see whether some trav­el­ler had not per­haps dropped a few dates or a little bar­ley by ac­ci­dent, but there was noth­ing.

“Doubt­less,” he said, “Al­lah wishes to show me that greed­i­ness is a sin even on the day of feast­ing.”

He drank as much of the wa­ter as he could in or­der to stay his hun­ger as well as as­suage his thirst, and then he saddled the mare and rode up out of the hol­low to­wards the hill coun­try. Towards the middle of the night he came to a small vil­lage where all the people were cel­eb­rat­ing the feast, hav­ing killed a young camel and sev­eral sheep. See­ing that he was a trav­el­ler they bade him be wel­come, and he sat down among them and ate his fill of meat, prais­ing Al­lah. And corn was given to his mare, so that the dumb an­imal also kept the feast.

“Truly,” said the people, “thy mare is a daugh­ter of Al Borak, the heav­enly steed called ‘the Light­ning,’ upon which the noc­turnal jour­ney was ac­com­plished by the Prophet, upon whom be peace.”

They said this not be­cause they di­vined that the mare had been given to Khaled by an an­gel, but be­cause they saw by her beauty that she must be swift as the wind. For she had a large head, with bony cheeks, and a full fore­head and round black eyes wide apart, with smooth black skin about them, and a poin­ted nose, and the un­der lip was like that of a camel, pro­ject­ing a little. And she was neither too long nor too short, hav­ing straight legs like steel, and small feet and round hoofs, neither over­grown in idle­ness nor over­worn with much work. And her tail lay flat and long and smooth when she was stand­ing still but arched like the plume of an os­trich when she moved. Her coat was bright bay, glossy and smooth and without any white mark­ings. By all these signs, which be­long to the purest blood, the people of the vil­lage knew that she was of the fleetest reared in Ar­a­bia. And Khaled was glad that the people ad­mired her, since she was the chief of his few pos­ses­sions, which in­deed were not many.

He did not know be­fore­hand what he should do, nor what he should say when in the pres­ence of the Sultan of Ne­jed, still less how he could ven­ture to ask Ze­howah in mar­riage, hav­ing no gifts to of­fer and not be­ing him­self a prince. Be­fore he had be­come a man it would have been easy for him to find treas­ures in the Earth such as men had never seen, for, like all the genii, he had been ac­quain­ted with the most deeply hid­den mines and with all places where men had hid­den wealth in old times. But this know­ledge does not be­long to the in­tel­li­gence be­com­ing mor­tals, but rather to the fac­ulty of see­ing through solid sub­stance which is ex­er­cised by the spir­its of the air, and in his present state it was taken from him, to­gether with all pos­sib­il­ity of com­mu­nic­at­ing with his former com­pan­ions. He had noth­ing but his mare and his sword and the gar­ments he wore, and though the mare was in­deed a gift for a king he did not know whether he was meant to of­fer it to any­one, see­ing that it had been given him by an an­gel.

Never­the­less he did not lose heart, for the ce­les­tial mes­sen­ger had told him that by the will of Al­lah he should marry Ze­howah, and Al­lah was cer­tainly able to give him a king’s daugh­ter in mar­riage without the aid of gifts, of gold, of musk, of ’Ood, of aloes or of pearls.

He rose, there­fore, when he had eaten enough and had res­ted him­self and his mare, and after thank­ing the people of the vil­lage for their en­ter­tain­ment he rode on his way. He passed through a hill coun­try, some­times fer­tile and some­times stony and deser­ted, but he found wa­ter by the way and such food as he needed; and ac­com­plished the re­mainder of the jour­ney without hindrance.

On the morn­ing of the second day he came to a halt­ing-place from which he could see the city of Riad, and he was as­ton­ished at the size and mag­ni­fi­cence of the Sultan’s palace, which was vis­ible above the walls of the for­ti­fic­a­tion. Yet he was aware that he had seen all this be­fore as in a dream not al­to­gether for­got­ten when a man wakes at dawn after a long and rest­less night.

He gazed awhile, after he had made his ablu­tions, and then call­ing to his mare to come to him, he moun­ted and rode through the south­ern gate into the heart of the city.

II

When Khaled reached the palace he dis­moun­ted from his mare, and lead­ing her by the bridle entered the gate­way. Here he met many per­sons, guards, and slaves both black and white, and port­ers bear­ing pro­vi­sions, and a few wo­men, all hur­ry­ing hither and thither; and many no­ticed him, but a few gazed curi­ously into his face, and two or three grooms fol­lowed him a little way, point­ing out to each other the beau­ties of his mare.

“Truly,” they said, “if we did not know the mares of the stud bet­ter than the faces of our moth­ers, we should swear by Al­lah that this beast had been stolen from the Sultan’s stables by a thief in the night, for she is of the best blood in Ne­jed.”

These be­ing curi­ous they sa­luted Khaled and asked him whence he came and whither he was go­ing, see­ing that it is not cour­teous to ask a stranger any other ques­tions.

“I come from the Red Desert,” Khaled answered, “and I am go­ing into the palace as you see.”

The grooms saw that there was a re­buke in the last part of his an­swer and hung back and presently went their way.

“Are such mares bred in the Red Desert?” they ex­claimed. “The stranger is doubt­less the sheikh of some power­ful tribe. But if this be true, where are the men that came with him? And why is he dressed like a man of the city?”

So they hastened out of the gate­way to find the Be­douins who, they sup­posed, must have ac­com­pan­ied Khaled on his jour­ney.

But Khaled went for­ward and came to a great court in which were stone seats by the walls. Here a num­ber of people were wait­ing. So he sat down upon one of the seats and his mare laid her nose upon his shoulder as though in­quir­ing what he would do.

“Al­lah knows,” Khaled said, as though an­swer­ing her. So he waited pa­tiently.

At last a man came out into the court­yard who was richly dressed, and whom all the people sa­luted as he passed. But he came straight to­wards Khaled, who rose from his seat.

“Whence come you, my friend?” he in­quired after they had ex­changed the sa­luta­tion.

“From the Red Desert, and I de­sire per­mis­sion to speak with the Sultan when it shall please his majesty to see me.”

“And what do you de­sire of his majesty? I ask that I may in­form him be­fore­hand. So you will have a bet­ter re­cep­tion.”

“Tell the Sultan,” said Khaled, “that a man is here who has neither father nor mother nor any pos­ses­sions bey­ond a swift mare, a keen sword and a strong hand, but who is come nev­er­the­less to ask in mar­riage Ze­howah, the Sultan’s daugh­ter.”

The min­is­ter smiled and gazed at Khaled in si­lence for a mo­ment, but when he had looked keenly at his face, he be­came grave.

“It may be,” he thought, “that this is some great prince who comes thus simply as in a dis­guise, and it were best not to an­ger him.”

“I will de­liver your mes­sage,” he answered aloud, “though it is a strange one. It is cus­tom­ary for those who come to ask for a maiden in mar­riage to bring gifts—and to re­ceive oth­ers in re­turn,” he ad­ded.

“I neither bring gifts nor ask any,” said Khaled. “Al­lah is great and will provide me with what I need.”

“I fear that he will not provide you with the Sultan’s daugh­ter for a wife,” said the min­is­ter as he went away, but Khaled did not hear the words, though he would have cared little if he had.

Now it chanced that Ze­howah was sit­ting in a bal­cony sur­roun­ded with lat­tice, over the court­yard, on that morn­ing and she had seen Khaled enter, lead­ing his mare by the bridle. But though she watched the stranger and his beast idly for some time she thought as little of the one as of the other, for her heart was not turned to love, and she knew noth­ing of horses. But her wo­men thought dif­fer­ently and spoke loudly, prais­ing the beauty of both.

“There is in­deed a war­rior able to fight in the front of our armies,” they said. “Truly such a man must have been Khaled ibn Walad, the Sword of the Lord, in the days of the Prophet—upon whom peace.”

By and by there was a cry that the Sultan was com­ing into the room, and the wo­men rose and re­tired. The Sultan sat down upon the car­pet by his daugh­ter, in the bal­cony.

“Do you see that stranger, hold­ing a beau­ti­ful mare by the bridle?” he asked.

“Yes, I see him,” answered Ze­howah in­dif­fer­ently.

“He is come to ask you in mar­riage.”

“Another!” she ex­claimed with a care­less laugh. “If it is the will of Al­lah I will marry him. If not, he will go away like the rest.”

“This man is not like the rest, my daugh­ter. He is either a mad­man or some power­ful prince in dis­guise.”

“Or both, per­haps,” laughed Ze­howah. She laughed of­ten, for al­though she was not in­clined to love, she was of a gentle and merry tem­per.

“His mes­sage was a strange one,” said the Sultan. “He says that he neither brings gifts nor asks them, that he has neither father nor mother, nor any pos­ses­sions ex­cept­ing a swift mare, a keen sword and a strong hand.”

“I see the mare, the sword and the hand,” answered Ze­howah. “But the hand is like any other hand—how can I tell whether it be strong? The sword is in its sheath, and I can­not see its edge, and though the mare is pretty enough, I have seen many of your own I liked as well. The ele­phants of the In­dian prince were more amus­ing, and the prince him­self was more beau­ti­ful than this stranger with his black beard and his sol­emn face.”

“That is true,” said the Sultan with a sigh.

“Do you wish me to marry this man?” Ze­howah asked.

“My daugh­ter, I wish you to choose of your own free will. Never­the­less I trust that you will choose be­fore long, that I may see my child’s chil­dren be­fore I die.”

For the Sultan was old and white-bearded, and was already some­what bowed with ad­van­cing years and with bur­den of many cares and the fa­tigues of many wars. Yet his eye was bright and his heart fear­less still, though his judg­ment was of­ten weak and va­cil­lat­ing.

“Do you wish me to marry this man?” Ze­howah asked again. “He will be a strange hus­band, for he is a strange suitor, com­ing without gifts and hav­ing neither father nor mother. But I will do as you com­mand. If you leave it to me I shall never marry.”

“I did not say that I de­sired you to take this one es­pe­cially,” pro­tested the Sultan, “though for the mat­ter of gifts I care little, since heaven has sent me wealth in abund­ance. But my re­main­ing years are few, and the years of life are like stones slip­ping from a moun­tain which move slowly at first, and then faster un­til they out­run the light­ning and leap into the dark val­ley be­low. And what is re­quired of a hus­band is that he be a true be­liever, young and whole in every part, and of a char­it­able dis­pos­i­tion.”

“Truly,” laughed Ze­howah, “if he have no pos­ses­sions, char­ity will avail him little, since he has noth­ing to give.”

“There is other char­ity be­sides the giv­ing of alms, my daugh­ter, since it is char­ity even to think char­it­ably of oth­ers, as you know. But I have not said that you should marry this man, for you are free. And in­deed I have not yet talked with him. But I have sent for him and you shall hear him speak. See—they are just now con­duct­ing him to the hall of audi­ences. But in­deed I think he is no hus­band for you, after all.”

The Sultan rose and went to re­ceive Khaled, and Ze­howah went to the secret win­dow above her father’s raised seat in the hall.

Khaled made the cus­tom­ary sa­luta­tion with the greatest re­spect, and the Sultan made him sit down at his right hand as though he had been a prince, and asked him whence he had come. Then a re­fresh­ment was brought, and Khaled ate and drank a little, after which the Sultan in­quired his busi­ness.

“I come,” said Khaled boldly, “to ask your daugh­ter Ze­howah in mar­riage. I bring no gifts, for I have none to of­fer, nor have I any in­her­it­ance. My mare is my for­tune, my sword is my ar­gu­ment and my wit is in my arm.”

“You are a strange suitor,” said the Sultan; but he kept a pleas­ant coun­ten­ance, since Khaled was his guest. “You are no doubt the sheikh of a tribe of the Red Desert, though I was not aware that any tribes dwelt there.”

“So far as be­ing the sheikh of my tribe,” said Khaled with a smile, “your majesty may call me so, for my tribe con­sists of my­self alone, see­ing that I have neither father nor mother nor any re­la­tions.”

“Truly, I have never talked with such a suitor be­fore,” answered the Sultan. “At least I pre­sume that you are a son of some prince, and that you have chosen to dis­guise your­self as a rich trav­el­ler and to hide your his­tory un­der an al­legory.”

The Sultan would cer­tainly not have al­lowed him­self to over­step the bounds of cour­tesy so far, but for his as­ton­ish­ment at Khaled’s dar­ing man­ner. He was too keen, how­ever, not to see that this man was some­thing above the or­din­ary and that, whatever else he might be, he was not a com­mon im­postor. Such a fel­low would have found means to rob a cara­van of valu­able goods, to of­fer as gifts, would have brought him­self a train of camels and slaves and would have given him­self out as a prince of some dis­tant coun­try from which it would not be pos­sible to ob­tain in­form­a­tion.

“Istagh­fir Al­lah! I am no prince,” Khaled answered. “I ask for the hand of your daugh­ter. The will of Al­lah will be ac­com­plished.”

He knew that Ze­howah was watch­ing and listen­ing be­hind the lat­tice in her place of con­ceal­ment, for the memory of such things had not been taken from him when he had lost the su­per­nat­ural vis­ion of the genii and had be­come an or­din­ary man. He was de­term­ined there­fore to be truth­ful and to say noth­ing which he might af­ter­wards be called upon to ex­plain. For he never doubted but that Ze­howah would be his wife, since the an­gel had told him that it should be so.

“And what if I re­fuse even to con­sider your pro­posal?” in­quired the Sultan, to see what he would say.

“If it is the will of Al­lah that I marry your daugh­ter, your re­fusal would be use­less, but if it is not his will, your re­fusal would be al­to­gether un­ne­ces­sary.”

The Sultan was much struck by this ar­gu­ment which showed a ready wit in the stranger and which he could only have op­posed by as­sert­ing that his own will was su­per­ior to that of heaven it­self.

“But,” said he, de­fend­ing him­self, “any of the pre­vi­ous suit­ors might have said the same.”

“Undoubtedly,” replied Khaled, un­abashed. “But they did not say it. Your majesty will cer­tainly now con­sider the mat­ter.”

“In the mean­while,” the Sultan answered, very gra­ciously, “you are my guest, and you have come in time to take part in the third day of the feast, to which you are wel­come in the name of Al­lah, the mer­ci­ful.”

Thereupon the Sultan rose and Khaled was con­duc­ted to the apart­ments set apart for the guests. But the Sultan re­turned to the harem in a very thought­ful mood, and be­fore long he found Ze­howah who had re­turned to her seat in the bal­cony.

“This is a very strange suitor,” he said, shak­ing his head and look­ing into his daugh­ter’s face.

“He is at least bold and out­spoken,” she answered. “He makes no secret of his poverty nor of his wishes. Whatever he be, he is in earn­est and speaks truth. I would like well to know the only secret which he wishes to keep—who he really is.”

“It may be,” said the Sultan thought­fully, “that if I threaten to cut off his head he will tell us. But on the other hand, he is a guest.”

“He is not of those who are eas­ily ter­ri­fied, I think. Tell me, my father, do you wish me to marry him?”

“How could you marry a man who has no fam­ily and no in­her­it­ance? Would such a mar­riage be­fit the daugh­ter of kings?”

“Why not?” asked Ze­howah with much calmness.

The Sultan stared at her in as­ton­ish­ment.

“Has this stranger en­chanted your ima­gin­a­tion?” he in­quired by way of an­swer.

“No,” replied Ze­howah scorn­fully. “I have seen the noblest, the most beau­ti­ful and the richest of the Earth, ready to take me to wife, and I have not loved. Shall I love an out­cast?”

“Then how can you ask my wishes?”

“Be­cause there are good reas­ons why I should marry this man.”

“Good reas­ons? In the name of Al­lah let me hear them, if there are any.”

“You are old, my father,” said Ze­howah, “and it has not pleased heaven to send you a son, nor to leave you any liv­ing re­la­tion to sit upon the throne when your years are ac­com­plished. You must needs think of your suc­cessor.”

“The bet­ter reason for choos­ing some power­ful prince, whose ter­rit­ory shall in­crease the king­dom he in­her­its from me, and whose al­li­ance shall strengthen the em­pire I leave be­hind me.”

“Istagh­fir Al­lah! The worse reason. For such a prince would be at­tached to his own coun­try, and would take me thither with him and would neg­lect the king­dom of Ne­jed, re­gard­ing it as a land of strangers whom he may op­press with taxes to in­crease his own splend­our. And this is not un­reas­on­able, since no king can wisely gov­ern two king­doms sep­ar­ated from each other by more than three days’ jour­ney. No man can have other than the one of two reas­ons for ask­ing me in mar­riage. Either he has heard of me and de­sires to pos­sess me, or he wishes to in­crease his domin­ions by the in­her­it­ance which will be mine.”

“Doubt­less, this is the truth,” said the Sultan. “But so much the more does this stranger in all prob­ab­il­ity covet my king­dom, since he has noth­ing of his own.”

“This is what I mean. For, hav­ing no other pos­ses­sions to dis­tract his at­ten­tion, he will re­main al­ways here, and will gov­ern your king­dom for its own ad­vant­age in or­der that it may profit him­self.”

“This is a subtle ar­gu­ment, my daugh­ter, and one re­quir­ing con­sid­er­a­tion.”

“The more so be­cause the man seems oth­er­wise well fit­ted to be my hus­band, since he is a true be­liever, and young, and fear­less and out­spoken.”

“But if this is all,” ob­jec­ted the Sultan, “there are in Ne­jed sev­eral young men, sons of my chief courtiers, who pos­sess the same qual­i­fic­a­tions. Choose one of them.”

“On the con­trary, to choose one of them would arouse the jeal­ousy of all the rest, with their fam­il­ies and slaves and freed­men, whereby the king­dom would eas­ily be ex­posed to civil war. But if I take a stranger it is more prob­able that all will be for him, since you are be­loved, and there is no reason why one party should op­pose him and an­other sup­port him, since none of them know any­thing of him.”

“But he will not be be­loved by the people un­less he is lib­eral, and he has noth­ing where­with to be gen­er­ous.”

“And where are the treas­ures of Riad?” laughed Ze­howah. “Is it not easy for you to go secretly to his cham­ber and to give him as much gold as he needs?”

“That is also true. I see that you have set your heart upon him.”

“Not my heart, my father, but my head. For I have in­fin­itely more head than heart, and I see that the wel­fare of the king­dom will be bet­ter se­cured with such a ruler, than it would have been un­der a for­eign prince whose right hand would be per­petu­ally thrust out to take in Ne­jed that which his left hand would throw to courtiers in his own coun­try. Do I speak wis­dom or folly?”

“It is neither all folly nor all wis­dom.”

“I have seen this man, I have heard him speak,” said Ze­howah. “He is as well as an­other since I must marry sooner or later. Moreover I have an­other ar­gu­ment.”

“What is that?”

“Either he is a man strong enough to rule me, or he is not,” Ze­howah answered with a laugh. “If he can gov­ern me, he can gov­ern the king­dom of Ne­jed. But if not I will gov­ern it for him, and rule him also.”

The Sultan looked up to heaven and slightly raised his hands from his knees.

“Al­lah is mer­ci­ful and for­giv­ing!” he ex­claimed. “Is this the spirit be­fit­ting a wife?”

“Is it char­ity to cause hap­pi­ness?”

“Undoubtedly it is char­ity.”

“And which is greater, the hap­pi­ness of many or the hap­pi­ness of one?”

“The hap­pi­ness of many is greater,” answered the Sultan. “What then?” he asked after a time, see­ing that she said noth­ing more.

“I have spoken,” she replied. “It is best that I should marry him.”

Then there was si­lence for a long time, dur­ing which the Sultan sat quite mo­tion­less in his place, watch­ing his daugh­ter, while she looked idly through the lat­tice at the people who came and went in the court be­low. She seemed to feel no emo­tion.

The Sultan did not know how to op­pose Ze­howah’s will any more than he could an­swer her ar­gu­ments, al­though his worldly wis­dom was al­to­gether at vari­ance with her de­cision. For she was the be­loved child of his old age and he could re­fuse her noth­ing. Moreover, in what she had said, there was much which re­com­men­ded it­self to his judg­ment, though by no means enough to per­suade him. At last he rose from the car­pet and em­braced her.

“If it is your will, let it be so,” he said.

“It is the will of Al­lah,” answered Ze­howah. “Let it be ac­com­plished im­me­di­ately.”

With a sigh the Sultan with­drew and sent a mes­sen­ger to Khaled re­quest­ing him to come to an­other and more se­cluded cham­ber, where they could be alone and talk freely.

Khaled showed no sur­prise on hear­ing that his suit was ac­cep­ted, but he thought it fit­ting to ex­press much grat­it­ude for the fa­vour­able de­cision. Then the Sultan, who did not wish to seem too read­ily yield­ing, began to ex­plain to Khaled Ze­howah’s reas­ons for ac­cept­ing a poor stranger, present­ing them as though they were his own.

“For,” he said, “whatever you may in real­ity be, you have chosen to present your­self to us in such a man­ner as would not have failed to bring about a re­fusal un­der any other cir­cum­stances. But I have con­sidered that as it will be your des­tiny, if heaven grants you life, to rule my king­dom after me, you will in all like­li­hood rule it more wisely and care­fully, for hav­ing no other cares in a dis­tant coun­try to dis­tract your at­ten­tion; and be­cause you have no re­la­tions you are the less li­able to the at­tacks of open or secret jeal­ousy.”

The Sultan then gave him a large sum of money in gold pieces, which Khaled gladly ac­cep­ted, since he had not even where­withal to buy him­self a gar­ment for the wed­ding feast, still less to dis­trib­ute gifts to the courtiers and to the mul­ti­tude. The Sultan also presen­ted him with a black slave to at­tend to his per­sonal wants.

Khaled then sent for mer­chants from the bazaar, and they brought him all man­ner of rich stuffs, such as he needed. There came also two tail­ors, who sat down upon a mat­ting in his apart­ment and im­me­di­ately began to make him clothes, while the black slave sat be­side them and watched them, lest they should steal any of the gold of the em­broid­er­ies.

When it was known in the palace that the Sultan’s only daugh­ter was to be mar­ried at once, there were great re­joicings, and many camels were slaughtered and a great num­ber of sheep, to sup­ply food for so great a feast. A num­ber of cooks were hired also to help those who be­longed to the palace, for al­though the Sultan fed daily more than three hun­dred per­sons, guests, trav­el­lers, and poor, be­sides all the mem­bers of the house­hold, yet this was as noth­ing com­pared with the mul­ti­tude to be provided for on the present oc­ca­sion.

Then it was that Hadji Mo­hammed, the chief of the cooks, sat down upon the floor in the midst of the main kit­chen and beat his breast and wept. For the con­fu­sion was great so that the voice of one man could not be heard for the diabol­ical scream­ing of the many, and the cooks smote the young lads who helped them, and these, run­ning to es­cape from the blows, fell against the port­ers who came in from out­side bear­ing sacks of sugar, and great bas­kets of fruit and quar­ters of meat and skins of wa­ter, and bushels of meal and a hun­dred other things equally ne­ces­sary to the cook­ing; and the port­ers, stag­ger­ing un­der their bur­dens, fell between the legs of the mules loaded with fire­wood, that had been brought to the gate, and the dumb beasts kicked vi­ol­ently in all dir­ec­tions, while the slaves who drove them struck them with their staves, and the mules began to run among the camels, and the camels, be­ing ter­ri­fied, rose from the ground and began to plunge and skip like young foals, while more port­ers and more mules and more slaves came on in mul­ti­tudes to the door of the kit­chen. And it was very hot, for it was noon­tide, and in sum­mer, and there were flies without num­ber, and the dogs that had been sleep­ing in the shade sprang up and barked loudly and bit whom­so­ever they could reach, and all the men bel­lowed to­gether, so that the con­fu­sion was ex­treme.

“Ver­ily,” cried Hadji Mo­hammed, “this is not a kit­chen but Yemamah, and I am not the chief of the cooks, but the chief of sin­ners and fuel for hell.” So he wept bit­terly and beat his breast.

But at last mat­ters men­ded, for there were many who were will­ing to do well, so that when the time came Hadji Mo­hammed was able to serve an hon­our­able feast to all, though the num­ber of the guests was not less than two thou­sand.

But Khaled, hav­ing vis­ited the bath, ar­rayed him­self mag­ni­fi­cently and rode upon his bay mare to the mosque, sur­roun­ded by the courtiers and the chief of­ficers of the state, and by a great throng of slaves from the palace. As he rode, he scattered gold pieces among the people from the bags which he car­ried, and all praised his lib­er­al­ity and swore by Al­lah that Ze­howah was tak­ing a very goodly hus­band. And as none knew whence he came, all were equally pleased, but most of all the Be­douins from the desert, of whom there were many at that time in Riad, who had come to keep the feast Bairam, for Khaled’s own words had been re­peated, and they had heard that he came from the desert like them­selves. And when he had fin­ished his pray­ers, he rode back to the palace.

When the time for the feast came the Sultan led Khaled into the great hall and made him sit at his right hand. The Sultan him­self was mag­ni­fi­cently dressed and covered with price­less jew­els, so that he shone like the sun among all the rest. Then he presen­ted Khaled to the as­sembly.

“This,” said he, “is Khaled, my be­loved son-in-law, the hus­band of my only daugh­ter, whom it has pleased Al­lah to send me, as the stay of my old age and as the suc­cessor to my king­dom. He will be ter­rible in war as Khaled ibn Walid, his name­sake, the Sword of the Lord, and gentle and just in peace as Abu Bakr of blessed memory. He is as brave as the lion, as strong as the camel, as swift as the os­trich, as saga­cious as the fox and as gen­er­ous as the pel­ican, who feeds her young with the blood of her own breast. Love him there­fore, as you have loved me, for he is ex­tremely worthy of af­fec­tion, and hate his en­emies and be faith­ful to him in the time of danger. By the bless­ing of Al­lah he shall rear up chil­dren to me in my old age, to be with you when he is gone.”

Thereupon Khaled turned and answered, speak­ing mod­estly but with much dig­nity in his man­ner.

“Ye men of Ne­jed, this is my mar­riage feast and I in­vite you all to be merry with me. Whether it shall please Al­lah to give me a long life, or whether it shall please him to take me this night I know not. We are in the hand of Al­lah. But this I do know. I will love you as my own people, see­ing that I have no people of my own. I will fight for you as a man fights for his own soul, for his wife and for his chil­dren, and I will di­vide justly the spoils in war, and give in peace what­so­ever I am able, to all those who are in need. I swear by Al­lah! You are all wit­nesses.”

The courtiers and all the guests were much pleased with this short speech, for they saw that Khaled was a man of few words and not proud or over­bear­ing, and none could look into his face and doubt his prom­ise. For the present mo­ment at least Ze­howah’s pre­dic­tion had been veri­fied, for no one was jeal­ous of him, and there was but one party among them all and that was for him. So they all feasted to­gether in har­mony un­til the sun was low.

In the mean­time Ze­howah re­mained in the harem, sur­roun­ded by her wo­men, and a sep­ar­ate meal was brought to them. They all sat upon the rich car­pets lean­ing on cush­ions set against the walls, and small low tables were brought in, covered with dishes and bowls con­tain­ing del­ic­ately pre­pared rice and mut­ton in great abund­ance and fresh blanket bread, hot from the stones, and olives brought from Syria. After­wards came sweet­meats without num­ber, such as Hadji Mo­hammed knew how to pre­pare, and gold and sil­ver gob­lets filled with a drink made from large sweet lem­ons and wa­ter, which is called treng. Ze­howah in­deed ate spar­ingly, for she was ac­cus­tomed to such dain­ties every day, but her wo­men were de­lighted with the abund­ance and left noth­ing to be taken away.

While they were eat­ing six of the wo­men played upon mu­sical in­stru­ments by turns, while oth­ers danced slow and grace­ful meas­ures, singing as they moved, and de­scrib­ing the un­speak­able hap­pi­ness which awaited their prin­cess in mar­riage. After­wards when the tables had been taken away and they had washed their hands with rose wa­ter from Ajjem, Ze­howah com­manded the singing and the dan­cing to cease, and the wo­men brought her one by one the dresses which she was to wear be­fore Khaled. They were very mag­ni­fi­cent, for it had needed many years to pre­pare them, and a great weight of gold and sil­ver threads had been weighed out to the tail­ors and em­broider­ers who had worked in the pre­par­a­tion of them ever since Ze­howah had been two years old. For the piece of ma­ter­ial is weighed first, and then the gold, and af­ter­wards, when the work is fin­ished, the whole is weighed to­gether, lest the tail­ors should steal any­thing.

But Ze­howah looked coldly at the gar­ments, one after the other, as they were brought and taken away, and the wo­men fan­cied that she was to be mar­ried to the stranger against her will, and that she re­membered the In­dian prince.

“It is a pity,” one of them ven­tured to say, “that the bride­groom has not brought any ele­phants with him, for we would have watched them from the bal­conies, since they are di­vert­ing beasts.”

“And it is a pity,” said Ze­howah scorn­fully, “that my hus­band has not a round, soft face, like the moon in May, and the eyes of a gazelle and the heart of a hare. Truly, such a one would have made you a good king, see­ing that he was also an un­be­liever!”

“Nay,” said the wo­man humbly, “Al­lah for­bid that I should make a com­par­ison, or bring an ill omen on the day by speak­ing of that which chanced a year ago. Truly, I only spoke of ele­phants, and not of men. For, surely, we all said when we saw him in the court that he looked a brave war­rior and a goodly man.”

Then a mes­sen­ger came from the Sultan say­ing that it was time to make ready. So they went to an­other apart­ment, where the nup­tial cham­ber had been pre­pared. The Sultan came, then, lead­ing Khaled, and fol­lowed by the Kadi, and all the wo­men veiled them­selves while the lat­ter read the de­clar­a­tion of mar­riage. After that they all with­drew and Khaled took his seat upon the high couch in the middle of the room. Presently all the wo­men re­turned, un­veiled, with loud singing and play­ing of in­stru­ments, lead­ing Ze­howah dressed in the first of the dresses which she was to put on, and which, though it was very splen­did, was of course the least mag­ni­fi­cent of all those which had been pre­pared. But Khaled sat in his place look­ing on quietly, for he was ac­quain­ted with the cus­tom, and he cared little for the rich gar­ments, but looked al­ways into Ze­howah’s face.

III

Khaled sat with his sword upon his feet, and when Ze­howah was not in the room he played with the hilt and thought of all that was hap­pen­ing.

“Truly,” he said to him­self, “Al­lah is great. Was I not, but a few days since, one of the genii con­demned to per­ish at the day of the re­sur­rec­tion? And am I not now a man, mar­ried to the most beau­ti­ful wo­man in the whole world, and the wisest and the best, need­ing only to be loved by her in or­der to ob­tain an un­dy­ing soul? And why should this wo­man not love me? Truly, we shall see be­fore long, when this mum­mery is fin­ished.”

So he sat on the couch while Ze­howah was led be­fore him again and again each time in cloth­ing more splen­did than be­fore, and each time with new songs and new mu­sic. But at the last time the at­tend­ants left her stand­ing be­fore him and went away, and only a very old wo­man re­mained at the door, scream­ing out in a cracked voice the cus­tom­ary ex­horta­tions. Then she, too, went away and the door was shut and Khaled and Ze­howah were alone.

It was now near the middle of the night. The cham­ber was large and high, lighted by a num­ber of hanging lamps such as are made in Bag­dad, of brass per­for­ated with beau­ti­ful designs and filled with col­oured glasses, in each of which a little wick floats upon oil. Upon the walls rich car­pets were hung, both Ar­a­bian and Per­sian, some taken in war as booty, and some brought by mer­chants in time of peace. A brass chaf­ing dish stood at some dis­tance from the couch, and upon the coals the wo­men had thrown powdered myrrh and ben­zoin be­fore they went away. But Khaled cared little for these things, since he had seen all the treas­ures of the Earth in their most secret de­pos­it­or­ies.

Ze­howah had watched him nar­rowly dur­ing the ce­re­mony of the dresses and had seen that he felt no sur­prise at any­thing which was brought be­fore him.

“His own coun­try must be full of great wealth and mag­ni­fi­cence,” she thought, “since so much treas­ure does not as­ton­ish him.” And she was dis­ap­poin­ted.

Now that they were alone, he still sat in si­lence, gaz­ing at her as she stood be­side him, and not even think­ing of any speech, for he was over­come and struck dumb by her eyes.

“You are not pleased with what I have shown you,” Ze­howah said at last in a tone of dis­pleas­ure and dis­ap­point­ment. “And yet you have seen the wealth of my father’s palace.”

“I have seen neither wealth nor treas­ure, neither rich gar­ments, nor pre­cious stones nor chains of gold nor em­broid­er­ies of pearls,” Khaled answered slowly.

But Ze­howah frowned and tapped the car­pet im­pa­tiently with her foot where she stood, for she was an­noyed, hav­ing ex­pec­ted him to praise the beauty of her many dresses.

“They who have eyes can see,” she said. “But if you are not pleased, my father will give me a hun­dred dresses more beau­ti­ful than these, and pearls and jew­els without end.”

“I should not see them,” Khaled replied. “I have seen two jew­els which have dazzled me so that I can see noth­ing else.”

Ze­howah gazed at him with a look of in­quiry.

“I have seen the eyes of Ze­howah,” he con­tin­ued, “which are as the stars Sirius and Alde­baran, when they are over the desert in the nights of winter. What jew­els can you show me like these?”

Then Ze­howah laughed softly and sat down be­side her hus­band on the edge of the couch.

“Never­the­less,” she said, “the dresses are very rich. You might ad­mire them also.”

“I will look at them when you are not near me, for then my sight will be re­stored for other things.”

Khaled took her hand in his and held it.

“Tell me, Ze­howah, will you love me?” he asked in a soft voice.

“You are my lord and my mas­ter,” she answered, look­ing mod­estly down­ward, and her hand lay quite still.

She was so very beau­ti­ful that as Khaled sat be­side her and looked at her down­cast face, and knew that she was his, he could not eas­ily be­lieve that she was cold and in­dif­fer­ent to him.

“By Al­lah!” he thought, “can it be so hard to get a wo­man’s love? Truly, I think she be­gins to love me already.”

Ze­howah looked up and smiled care­lessly as though an­swer­ing his ques­tion, but Khaled was ob­liged to ad­mit in his heart that the an­swer lacked clear­ness, for he found it no easier to in­ter­pret a wo­man’s smile than men had found it be­fore him, and have found it since, even to this day.

“You have had many suit­ors,” he said at last, “and it is said that your father has given you your own free choice, al­low­ing you to see them and hear them speak while he was re­ceiv­ing them. Tell me why you have chosen me rather than the rest, un­less it is be­cause you love me? For I came with empty hands, and without ser­vants or slaves, or ret­inue of any kind, rid­ing alone out of the Red Desert. It was there­fore for my­self that you took me.”

“You are right. It was for your­self that I took you.”

“Then it was for love of me, was it not?”

“There were and still are many and good reas­ons,” answered Ze­howah calmly, and at the same time with­draw­ing her hand from his and smooth­ing back the black hair from her fore­head. “I told them all to my father, and he was con­vinced.”

“Tell them to me also,” said Khaled.

So she ex­plained all to him in de­tail, mak­ing him see everything as she saw it her­self. And the ex­plan­a­tion was so very clear, that Khaled felt a cold chill in his heart as he un­der­stood that she had chosen him rather for politic reas­ons, than be­cause she wished him for her hus­band.

“And yet,” she ad­ded at the end, “it was the will of Al­lah, for oth­er­wise I would not have chosen you.”

“But surely,” he said, some­what en­cour­aged by these last words, “there was some love in the choice, too.”

“How can I tell!” she ex­claimed, with a little laugh. “What is love?”

Find­ing him­self con­fron­ted by such an amaz­ing ques­tion, Khaled was si­lent, and took her hand again. For though many have asked what love is, no one has ever been able to find an an­swer in words to sat­isfy the ques­tioner, see­ing that the an­swer can have no more to do with words than love it­self, a mat­ter suf­fi­ciently ex­plained by a cer­tain wise man, who un­der­stood the heart of man. If, said he, a man who loves a wo­man, or a wo­man who loves a man could give in words the pre­cise reason why he or she loves, then love it­self could be defined in lan­guage; but as no man or wo­man has ever suc­ceeded in do­ing this, I in­fer that they who love best do not them­selves know in what love con­sists—still less there­fore can any­one else know, where­fore the defin­i­tion is im­possible, and no one need waste time in try­ing to find it.

A cer­tain wit has also said that al­though it be im­possible for any man to ex­plain the nature of love to many per­sons at the same time, he gen­er­ally finds it easy to make his ex­plan­a­tions to one per­son only. But this is a mere quib­bling jest and not de­serving of any at­ten­tion.

Ze­howah ex­pec­ted an an­swer to her ques­tion, and Khaled was si­lent, not be­cause he was as yet too little ac­quain­ted with the feel­ings of a man to give them ex­pres­sion, but be­cause he already felt so much that it was hard for him to speak at all.

Ze­howah laughed and shook her head, for she was not of a timid tem­per.

“How can you ex­pect me to say that I love you, when you your­self are un­able to an­swer such a simple ques­tion?” she asked. “And be­sides, are you not my lord and my mas­ter? What is it then to you, whether I love you or not?”

But again Khaled was si­lent, de­bat­ing whether he should tell her the truth, how the an­gel had prom­ised in Al­lah’s name that if she loved him he should ob­tain an un­dy­ing soul, and how the task of ob­tain­ing her love had been laid upon him as a sort of atone­ment for hav­ing slain the In­dian prince. But as he re­flec­ted he un­der­stood that this would prob­ably es­trange her all the more from him.

“Yet I can an­swer your ques­tion,” he said at last. “What is love? It is that which is in me for you only.”

“But how am I to know what that is?” asked Ze­howah, draw­ing up the smooth gold brace­lets upon her arm and let­ting them fall down to her wrist, so that they jangled like a camel’s bell.

“If you love me you will know,” Khaled answered, “for then, per­haps, you will feel a tenth part of what I feel.”

“And why not all that you feel?” she asked, look­ing at him, but still play­ing with the brace­lets.

“Be­cause it is im­possible for any wo­man to love as much as I love you, Ze­howah.”

“You mean, per­haps, that a wo­man is too weak to love so well,” she sug­ges­ted. “And you think, per­haps, that we are weak be­cause we sit all our lives upon the car­pets in the harem eat­ing sweet­meats, and listen­ing to singing girls and to old wo­men who tell us tales of long ago. Yet there have been strong wo­men too—as strong as men. Kenda, who tore out the heart of Kamsa—was she weak?”

“Wo­men are stronger to hate than to love,” said Khaled.

“But a man can for­get his hatred in the love of a wo­man, and his strength also,” laughed Ze­howah. “I would rather that you should not love me at all, than that you should for­get to be strong in the day of battle. For I have mar­ried you that you may lead my people to war and bring home the spoil.”

“And if I des­troy all your en­emies and the en­emies of your people, will you love me then, Ze­howah?”

“Why should I love you then, more than now? What has war to do with love? Again, I ask, what is it to you whether I love you or not? Am I not your wife, and are you not my mas­ter? What is this love of which you talk? Is it a rich gar­ment that you can wear? A pre­cious stone that you can fasten in your turban? A rich car­pet to spread in your house? A treas­ure of gold, a moun­tain of am­ber­gris, a bushel of pearls from Oman? Why do you covet it? Am I not beau­ti­ful enough? Then is love henna to make my hair bright, or kohl to darken my eyes, or a boiled egg with al­monds to smooth my face? I have all these things, and oint­ments from Egypt, and per­fumes from Syria, and if I am not beau­ti­ful enough to please you, it is the will of Al­lah, and love will not make me fairer.”

“Yet love is beauty,” Khaled answered. “For Kadi­jah was lovely in the eyes of the Prophet, upon whom be peace, be­cause she loved him, though she was a widow and old.”

“Am I a widow? Am I old?” asked Ze­howah with some in­dig­na­tion. “Do I need the ima­gin­ary cos­metic you call love to smooth my wrinkles, to lighten my eyes, or to make my teeth white?”

“No. You need noth­ing to make you beau­ti­ful.”

“And for the mat­ter of that, I can say it of you. You tell me that you love me. Is it love that makes your body tall and straight, your beard black, your fore­head smooth, your hand strong? Would not any wo­man see what I see, whether you loved her or not? See! Is your hand whiter than mine be­cause you love and I do not?”

She laughed again as she held her hand be­side his.

“Truly,” thought Khaled, “it is less easy than I sup­posed. For the heart of a wo­man who does not love is like the desert, when the wind blows over it, and there are neither tracks nor land­marks. And I am wan­der­ing in this desert like a man seek­ing lost camels.”

But he said noth­ing, for he was not yet skilled in the ar­gu­ments of love. Thereupon Ze­howah smiled, and rest­ing her cheek upon her hand, looked into his face, as though say­ing scorn­fully, “Is it not all van­ity and folly?”

Khaled sighed, for he was dis­ap­poin­ted, as a thirsty man who, com­ing to drink of a clear spring, finds the wa­ter bit­ter, while his thirst in­creases and grows un­bear­able.

“Why do you sigh?” Ze­howah asked, after a little si­lence. “Are you weary? Are you tired with the feast­ing? Are you full of bit­ter­ness, be­cause I do not love you? Com­mand me and I will obey. Are you not my lord to whom I am sub­ject?”

He did not speak, but she drew him to her, so that his head res­ted upon her bosom, and she began to sing to him in a low voice.

For a long time Khaled kept his eyes shut, listen­ing to her voice. Then, on a sud­den, he looked up, and without speak­ing so much as a word, he clasped her in his arms and kissed her.

Be­fore it was day there was a great tu­mult in the streets of Riad, of which the noise came up even to the cham­ber where Khaled and Ze­howah were sleep­ing. Ze­howah awoke and listened, won­der­ing what had happened and try­ing to un­der­stand the cries of the dis­tant mul­ti­tude. Then she laid her hand upon Khaled’s fore­head and waked him.

“What is it?” he asked.

“It is war,” she answered. “The en­emy have sur­prised the city in the night of the feast. Arise and take arms and go out to the people.”

Khaled sprang up and in a mo­ment he was clothed and had girt on his sword. Then he took Ze­howah in his arms.

“While I live, you are safe,” he said.

“Am I afraid? Go quickly,” she answered.

At that time the Sultan of Ne­jed was at war with the north­ern tribes of Sham­mar, and the en­emy had taken ad­vant­age of the month of Ra­madhan, in which few per­sons travel, to ad­vance in great num­bers to Riad. Dur­ing the three days’ feast of Bairam they had moved on every night, slay­ing the in­hab­it­ants of the vil­lages so that not one had es­caped to bring the news, and in the day­time they had hid­den them­selves wherever they could find shel­ter. But in the night in which Khaled and Ze­howah were mar­ried they reached the very walls of the city, and wait­ing un­til all the people were asleep, a party of them had climbed up upon the ram­parts and had opened one of the gates to their com­pan­ions after killing the guards.

Khaled found his mare and moun­ted her without saddle or bridle in his haste, then draw­ing his sabre he rode swiftly out of the palace into the con­fu­sion. The en­emy with their long spears were driv­ing the panic-stricken guards and the shriek­ing people be­fore them to­wards the palace, slaughter­ing all whom they over­took, so that the gut­ters of the streets were already flow­ing with blood, and the horses of the en­emy stumbled over the bod­ies of the de­fend­ers. The whole mul­ti­tude of the pur­sued and the pur­suers were just break­ing out of the prin­cipal street into the open space be­fore the palace when Khaled met them, a single man fa­cing ten thou­sand.

“I shall cer­tainly per­ish in this fight,” he said to him­self, “and yet I shall not re­ceive the re­ward of the faith­ful, since Al­lah has not given me a soul. Never­the­less cer­tain of these dogs shall eat dirt be­fore the rest get into the palace.”

So he pressed his legs to the bare sides of his mare and lif­ted up his sword and rode at the foe, hav­ing neither buck­ler, nor hel­met, nor shirt of mail to pro­tect him, but only his clothes and his turban. But his arm was strong, and it has been said by the wise that it is bet­ter to fall upon an old lion with a reed than to stand armed in the way of a man who seeks death.

“Yal­lah! The Sword of the Lord!” shouted Khaled, in such a ter­rible voice that the as­sail­ants ceased to kill for a mo­ment, and the ter­ri­fied guards turned to see whence so great a voice could pro­ceed; and some who had seen Khaled re­cog­nised him and ran to meet him, and the oth­ers fol­lowed.

When the en­emy saw a single man rid­ing to­wards them across the great square be­fore the palace, they sent up a shout of de­ri­sion, and turned again to the slaughter of such of the in­hab­it­ants as could not ex­tric­ate them­selves.

“Shall one man stop an army?” they said. “Shall a fox turn back a herd of hy­enas?”

But when Khaled was among them they found less mat­ter for laughter. For the sword was keen, the mare was swift to double and turn, and Khaled’s hand was strong. In the twink­ling of an eye two of the en­emy lay dead, the one cloven to the chin, the other head­less.

Then a strange fever seized Khaled, such as he had not heard of, and all things turned to scar­let be­fore his eyes, both the walls of the houses, and the faces and the gar­ments of his foes. Men who saw him say that his face was white and shin­ing in the dawn, and that the flash­ing of the sword was like a storm of light­ning about his head, and after each flash there was a great rain of blood, and a crash­ing like thun­der as the horses and men of the en­emy fell to the Earth.

In the mean­time, too, the sol­diers of the city and the Be­douins of the desert who were within the walls for the feast, took cour­age, and turn­ing fiercely began to drive the as­sail­ants back by the way they had come, to­wards the mar­ket­place in the bazaar. But those be­hind still kept press­ing for­ward, while those in front were driven back, and the press be­came so great that the Sham­mars could no longer wield their weapons. The en­emy were crowded to­gether like sheep in a fold, and Khaled, with his men, began to cut a broad road through the very midst of them, hew­ing them down in ranks and throw­ing them aside, as corn is har­ves­ted in Egypt.

But after some time Khaled saw that he was alone, with a few fol­low­ers, sur­roun­ded by a great throng of the en­emy, for some of his men had been slain after slay­ing many of their foes, and some had not been able to fol­low, be­ing hindered at first by the heaps of dead and af­ter­wards by the mul­ti­tude of their op­pon­ents who closed in again over the bloody way through which Khaled had passed.

And now the Sham­mars saw that Khaled could not es­cape them, and they pressed him on every side, but the arch­ers dared not shoot at him for fear of hit­ting their own friends, if their ar­rows chanced to go by the mark. Other­wise he would un­doubtedly have per­ished, since he had no ar­mour, and not even a buck­ler with which to ward off the darts. But they thrust at him with spears and struck at him with their swords, and wounded him more than once, though he was not con­scious of pain or loss of blood, be­ing hot with the fever of the fight. He was hard pressed there­fore, and while he smote without ceas­ing he began to know that un­less a speedy res­cue came to him, his hour was at hand. From the bor­ders of the mar­ket­place, the men of Riad could still see his sword flash­ing and strik­ing, and they still heard his fierce cry.

He looked about him as he fought, and he saw that he was now al­most alone. One after an­other, the few who had pen­et­rated so far for­ward with him into the press, were over­whelmed by num­bers and fell bleed­ing from a hun­dred wounds till only a score were left, and Khaled saw that un­less he could now cut his way free, he must in­ev­it­ably per­ish. But the press was stub­born and a man might as well hope to make his way through a herd of camels crowded to­gether in a nar­row street. Then Khaled be­thought him of a stratagem. He alone was on horse­back, for the en­emy’s riders had rid­den be­fore, and he had met them in the street lead­ing to the palace, when he had him­self slain many, and where the rest were even now fall­ing un­der the swords of the men of Riad. And the few men who were with him were also all on foot. There­fore look­ing across the mar­ket­place he made as though he saw a great force com­ing to his as­sist­ance, and he shouted with all his breath, while his arm never res­ted.

“Smite, men of Ne­jed!” he cried. “For I see the Sultan him­self com­ing to meet us with five hun­dred horse­men! Smite! Yal­lah! It is the Sword of the Lord!”

Hear­ing these words, his men were en­cour­aged, and of the en­emy many turned their heads to see the new danger. But be­ing on foot they were hindered from see­ing by the throng. Yet so much the more Khaled shouted that the Sultan was com­ing, and many of the heads that turned to look were not turned back again, but rolled down to the feet of those to whom they had be­longed. The brave men who were with Khaled took heart and hewed with all their might, tak­ing up the cry of their leader when they saw that it dis­con­cer­ted their foes, so that the last took fright, and the panic ran through the whole mul­ti­tude.

“We shall be slain like sheep, and taken like lo­custs un­der a mantle, for we can­not move!” they cried, and they began to press away out of the mar­ket­place, for­cing their com­rades be­fore them into the nar­row streets.

But here many per­ished. For while every man in Riad had taken his sword and had gone out of his house to fight, the wo­men had dragged up cauldrons of boil­ing wa­ter, and also hand-mill stones, to the roofs, and they scal­ded and crushed their re­treat­ing foes. Then too, as the mar­ket­place was cleared, the sol­diers came on from the side of the palace, hav­ing slain all that stood in their way and taken most of their horses alive, which alone was a great booty, for there are not many horses in Ne­jed be­sides those of the Sultan, though these are the very best and fleetest in all Ar­a­bia. But the Sham­mars of the north are great horse-breed­ers. So the sol­diers moun­ted and joined Khaled in the pur­suit, and a great slaughter fol­lowed in the streets, though some of the en­emy were able to es­cape to the gates, and warn those of their fel­lows who were out­side to flee to the hills for safety, leav­ing much booty be­hind.

At the time of the second call to prayer Khaled dis­moun­ted from his mare in the mar­ket­place, and there was not one of the en­emy left alive within the walls. Those who re­mem­ber that day say that there were five thou­sand dead in the streets in Riad.

Khaled made such ablu­tion as he could, and hav­ing prayed and given thanks to Al­lah, he went back on foot to the palace, his bay mare fol­low­ing him, and thrust­ing her nose into his hand as he walked. For she was little hurt, and the blood that covered her shoulders and her flanks was not her own. But Khaled had many wounds on him, so that his com­pan­ions wondered how he was able to walk.

In the court of the palace the Sultan came to meet him, and fell upon his neck and em­braced him, for many mes­sen­gers had come, from time to time, telling how the fight went, and of the great slaughter. And Khaled smiled, for he thought that he should now win the love of Ze­howah.

“Said I not truly that he is as brave as the lion, and as strong as the camel?” cried the Sultan, ad­dress­ing those who stood in the court. “Has he not scattered our en­emies as the wind scat­ters the sand? Surely he is well called by the name Khaled.”

“For­get not your own men,” Khaled answered, “for they have shared in the danger and have slain more than I, and de­serve the spoil. There was a score of stout fel­lows with me at the last in the mar­ket­place, whose faces I should know again on a cloudy night. They fought as well as I, and it was the will of Al­lah that their en­emies should broil ever­last­ingly and drink boil­ing wa­ter. Let them be re­war­ded.”

“They shall every one have a rich gar­ment and a sum of money, be­sides their share of the spoil. But as for you, my be­loved son, go in and rest, and bind up your wounds, and af­ter­wards there shall be feast­ing and mer­ri­ment un­til the night.”

“The en­emy is not des­troyed yet,” answered Khaled. “Com­mand rather that the army make ready for the pur­suit, and when I have washed I will arm my­self and we will ride out and pur­sue the dogs un­til not one of them is left alive, and by the help of Al­lah we will take all Sham­mar and lay it un­der trib­ute and bring back the wo­men cap­tive. After that we shall feast more safely, and sleep without fear of be­ing waked by a herd of hy­enas in our streets.”

“Nay, but you must rest be­fore go­ing upon this ex­ped­i­tion,” ob­jec­ted the Sultan.

“The true be­liever will find rest in the grave, and feast­ing in para­dise,” answered Khaled.

“This is true. But even the camel must eat and drink on the jour­ney, or both he and his mas­ter will per­ish.”

“Let us then eat and drink quickly, that we may the sooner go.”

“As you will, let it be,” said the Sultan, with a sigh, for he loved feast­ing and mu­sic, be­ing now too old to go out and fight him­self as he had formerly done.

Thereupon Khaled went into the harem and re­turned to Ze­howah’s apart­ment. As he went the wo­men gathered round him with cries of glad­ness and songs of tri­umph, staunch­ing the blood that flowed from his wounds with their veils and gar­ments as he walked. And oth­ers ran be­fore to pre­pare the bath and to tell Ze­howah of his com­ing.

When she saw him she ran for­ward and took him by the hands and led him in, and her­self she bathed his wounds and bound them up with pre­cious bal­sams of great heal­ing power, not suf­fer­ing any of the wo­men to help her nor to touch him, but send­ing them away so that she might be alone with Khaled.

“I have slain cer­tain of your en­emies, Ze­howah,” he said, at last, “and I have driven out the rest from the city.” As yet neither of them had spoken.

“Do you think that I have not heard what you have done?” Ze­howah asked. “You have saved us all from death and cap­tiv­ity. You are our father and our mother. And now I will bring you food and drink and af­ter­wards you shall sleep.”

“So you are well pleased with the do­ings of the hus­band you have mar­ried,” he said.

He was dis­pleased, for he had sup­posed that she would love him for his deeds and for his wounds and that she would speak dif­fer­ently. But though she ten­ded him and bound his wounds, and bathed his brow with per­fumed wa­ters, and laid pil­lows un­der his head and fanned him, as a slave might have done, he saw that there was no warmth in her cheek, and that the depths of her eyes were empty, and that her hands were neither hot nor cold. By all these signs he knew that she felt no love for him, so he spoke coldly to her.

“Is it for me to be pleased or dis­pleased with the deeds of my lord and mas­ter?” she asked. “Never­the­less, thou­sands are even now bless­ing your name and re­turn­ing thanks to Al­lah for hav­ing sent them a pre­server in the hour of danger. I am but one of them.”

“I would rather see a faint light in your eyes, as of a star rising in the desert than hear the bless­ings of all the men of Ne­jed. I would rather that your hand were cold when it touches mine, and your cheek hot when I kiss it, than that your father should be­stow upon me all the treas­ures of Riad.”

“Is that love?” asked Ze­howah with a laugh. “A cold hand, a hot cheek, a bright eye?”

Khaled was si­lent, for he saw that she un­der­stood his words but not his mean­ing. It was now noon and it was very hot, even in the in­ner shade of the harem, and Khaled was glad to rest after the hard fight­ing, for his many slight wounds smar­ted with the heal­ing bal­sam, and his heart was heavy and dis­con­ten­ted.

Then Ze­howah called a slave wo­man to fan him with a palm leaf, and presently she brought him meat and rice and dates to eat, and cool drink in a golden cup, and she sat at his feet while he re­freshed him­self.

“How many did you slay with your own hand?” she asked at last, tak­ing up the good sword which lay be­side him on the car­pet.

IV

Khaled pondered deeply, be­ing un­cer­tain what to do, and try­ing to find out some ac­tion which could win for him what he wanted. Ze­howah re­ceived no an­swer to her ques­tion as to the num­ber of en­emies he had slain and she did not ask again, for she thought that he was weary and wished to rest in si­lence.

“What do you like best in the whole world?” he asked after a long time, to see what she would say.

“I like you best,” she answered, smil­ing, while she still played with his sword.

“That is very strange,” Khaled answered, mus­ing. But the col­our rose darkly in his cheeks above his beard, for he was pleased now as he had been dis­pleased be­fore.

“Why is it strange?” asked Ze­howah. “Are you not the palm tree in my plain, and a tower of refuge for my people?”

“And will you dry up the well from which the tree draws life, and take away the corner­stone of the tower’s found­a­tion?”

“You speak in fables,” said Ze­howah, laugh­ing.

“Yet you ima­gined the fable your­self, when you likened me to a palm and to a tower. But I am no lover of al­leg­or­ies. The sword is my ar­gu­ment, and my wit is in my arm. The wall by the tree is the wall of love, and the chief found­a­tion of the tower is the love of Ze­howah. If you des­troy that, the tree will wither and the tower will fall.”

“Surely there was never such a man as you,” Ze­howah answered, half jest­ing but half in earn­est. “You are as one who has bought a white mare; and though she is fleet, and good to look at, and obed­i­ent to his voice and knee, yet he is dis­con­ten­ted be­cause she can­not speak to him, and he would fain have her black in­stead of white, and if pos­sible would teach her to sing like a Per­sian night­in­gale.”

“Is it then not nat­ural in a wo­man to love man? Have you heard no tales of love from the storytellers of the harem?”

“I have heard many such tales, but none of them were told of me,” Ze­howah replied. “Will you drink again? Is the drink too sweet, or is it not cool?”

She had risen from her seat and held the golden cup, bend­ing down to him, so that her face was near his. He laid his hand upon her shoulder.

“Hear me, Ze­howah,” he said. “I want but one thing in the world, and it was for that I came out of the Red Desert to be your hus­band. And that thing I will have, though the price be greater than ru­bies, or than blood, or than life it­self.”

“If it is mine, I freely give it to you. If it is not mine, take it by force, or I will help you to take it by a stratagem, if I can. Am I not your wife?”

She spoke thus, sup­pos­ing from his face that he meant some treas­ure that could be taken by strength or by wile, for she could not be­lieve a man could speak so ser­i­ously of a mere thought such as love.

“Neither my right hand nor your wit can give me this, but only your heart, Ze­howah,” he answered, still hold­ing her and look­ing at her.

But now she did not laugh, for she saw that he was greatly in earn­est.

“You are still talk­ing of love,” she said. “And you are not jest­ing. I do not know what to an­swer you. Gladly will I say, I love you. Is that all? What is it else? Are those the words?”

“I care little for the words. But I will have the real­ity, though it cost your life and mine.”

“My life? Will you take my life, for the sake of a thought?”

“A thought!” he ex­claimed. “Do you call love a thought? I had not be­lieved a wo­man could be so cold as that.”

“If not a thought, what then? I have spoken the truth. If it were a treas­ure, or any­thing that can be taken, you could take it, and I could help you. But if the pos­sib­il­ity of pos­sess­ing it lie not in deeds, it lies in thoughts, and is it­self a thought. If you can teach me, I will think what you will; but if you can­not teach me, who shall? And how will it profit you to take my life or your own?”

“Is it pos­sible that love is only a thought?” asked Khaled, speak­ing rather to him­self than to her.

“It must be,” she answered. “The body is what it is in the eyes of oth­ers, but the soul is what it thinks it­self to be, happy or un­happy, lov­ing or not lov­ing.”

“You are too subtle for me, Ze­howah,” Khaled said. “Yet I know that this is not all true.”

For he knew that he pos­sessed no soul, and yet he loved her. Moreover he could think him­self happy or un­happy.

“You are too subtle,” he re­peated. “I will take my sword again and I will go out and fight, and pur­sue the en­emy and waste their coun­try, for it is not so hard to cut through steel as to touch the heart of a wo­man who does not love, and it is easier to tear down towers and strong­holds of stone with the na­ked hands than to build a temple upon the mov­ing sand of an empty heart.”

Khaled would have risen at once, but Ze­howah took his hand and en­treated him to stay with her.

“Will you go out in the heat of the day, wounded and wear­ied?” she asked. “Surely you will take a fever and die be­fore you have fol­lowed the Sham­mars so far as two days’ jour­ney.”

“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 sum­mer­time 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.

Mean­while Khaled went into the outer court of the palace, where many sol­diers were con­greg­ated to­gether in the shade of the high wall, eat­ing camel’s meat and blanket bread and drink­ing the wa­ter from the well. They were all able-bod­ied and un­hurt, for those who had been wounded were at their houses, ten­ded by their wives.

“Men of Riad!” cried Khaled, stand­ing be­fore them. “We have fought a good fight this morn­ing and the power of our foes is broken. But all are not yet des­troyed, and it may be that there are many thou­sands still lurk­ing within a day’s march of the city, slay­ing the people, burn­ing their houses and des­troy­ing their har­vests. Let us go out and kill them all be­fore they are able to go back to their own coun­try. After­wards we will pur­sue those who are already es­cap­ing, and we will lay all the tribes of Sham­mar un­der trib­ute and bring back the wo­men cap­tive.”

Thereupon a di­vi­sion arose among the sol­diers. Some were for go­ing at once with Khaled, but oth­ers said it was the hot sea­son and no time for war.

“It is in­deed sum­mer,” said Khaled. “But if the Sham­mars were able to come to Riad in the heat, the men of Riad are able to go to them. And I at least will go at once, and those who wish to share the spoil will go with me, but those who are sat­is­fied to sit in the shade and eat camel’s meat will stay be­hind. In an hour’s time I will ride out of the north­ern gate.”

So say­ing, Khaled rode slowly down into the city to­wards the mar­ket­place. The people were car­ry­ing away their own dead, and drag­ging off the bod­ies of their en­emies, with camels, by fours and fives tied to­gether to bury them in a great ditch without the walls. When Khaled ap­peared, many of the men gathered round him, with cries of joy, for they had sup­posed that some of his wounds were dan­ger­ous and that they should not see him for many days.

“Wal­lah! He is with us again!” they shouted, jost­ling each other to get near, and stand­ing on tip­toe to see the good mare that had car­ried him so well in the fight.

“Mas­al­lah! I am with you,” answered Khaled, “and if you will go with me we will send many more of the Sham­mars to eat thorns and thistles, as many as dwell in Kasim and Tabal Sham­mar as far as Haïl and by the help of Al­lah we will take the city of Haïl it­self and di­vide the spoil and bring away the wo­men cap­tive; and when we have taken all that there is we will lay the land un­der trib­ute and make it sub­ject to Ne­jed. So let those who will go with me arm them­selves and take every man his horse or his camel, and dates and bar­ley and wa­ter-skins, and in an hour’s time we will ride out. For Al­lah will cer­tainly give us the vic­tory.”

“Let us bury the dead today and to­mor­row we will go,” said many of those nearest to him.

“Are there no old men and boys in Riad to bind the sheaves you have mown?” asked Khaled. “And are there no wo­men to mourn over the dead of your kindred who have fallen in a good fight? And as for to­mor­row, it is yet in Al­lah’s hand. But today we have already with us. However, if you will not go with me, I will go alone.”

The men were pleased with Khaled’s speech, and in­deed the greater part of the dead were bur­ied by this time, for all the people had made haste to the work, fear­ing lest the bod­ies should bring a pes­ti­lence among them, since it was sum­mer­time and very hot. Then all those who were un­hurt and could bear arms, went and washed them­selves, and took their weapons and food, as Khaled had dir­ec­ted them. Be­fore the call to af­ter­noon pray­ers the whole host went out of the north­ern gate.

Then Khaled ac­com­plished all that he had spoken of, and much more, for he drove the scattered force of the en­emy be­fore him, over­tak­ing all at last and slay­ing all whom he over­took as far as Zulfah which is by the nar­row end of the Ne­fud. Here he res­ted a short time, and then quickly cross­ing the sand, he entered the coun­try called Kasim which is sub­ject to the Sham­mars. Here he was told by a wo­man who had been taken that the Sham­mars were com­ing with a new army against him out of Haïl. He there­fore hid his host in a pass of the hills just above the plain, and sent down a few Be­douins to en­camp at the foot of the moun­tains, bid­ding them call them­selves Sham­mars and make a show of be­ing friendly to the en­emy. So when the army of the Sham­mars reached the foot of the hills, they saw the tents and only one or two camels, and Khaled’s Be­douins came out and wel­comed them, and told them that Khaled was still cross­ing the Ne­fud, and that if they made haste through the hills they might come upon him un­awares and at an ad­vant­age as he began to as­cend. Thereupon the en­emy re­joiced and entered the pass in haste, after filling their wa­ter-skins.

When they were in the midst of the hills, Khaled and his army sprang up from the am­bush and fell upon them, and ut­terly des­troyed them, tak­ing all their horses and camels and arms; after which he went down into the plain and laid waste the coun­try about Haïl. He took the city as the Sham­mars had taken Riad. For he him­self got upon the wall at night, with the strongest and the bravest of his fol­low­ers, and slew the guards and opened the gate just be­fore the dawn. But there was no Khaled in Haïl to rally the sol­diers and give them heart to turn and make a stand in the streets.

Khaled then entered the palace and took the Sultan of Sham­mar alive, not suf­fer­ing him to be hurt, for he wished to bring him to Riad. This Sultan was a man of middle age, hav­ing only one eye, and also oth­er­wise ill-fa­voured, be­sides be­ing cow­ardly and fat. So Khaled ordered that he should be put into a lit­ter, and the lit­ter into a cage, and the cage slung between two camels. But he com­manded that the wo­men of the harem should be well treated and brought be­fore him, that he might see them, in­tend­ing to bring back the most beau­ti­ful of them as presents to his father-in-law.

“Surely,” said the men who were with him, “you will keep the fairest for your­self.”

But Khaled turned an­grily upon them.

“Have I not lately mar­ried the most beau­ti­ful wo­man in the world?” he asked. “I tell you it is for her sake that I have des­troyed the Sham­mars. But the Sultan shall have the best of these wo­men, and af­ter­wards the rest of them will be di­vided amongst you by lot.”

When the wo­men heard that they were to be dis­trib­uted among the men of Ne­jed they at first made a pre­tence of howl­ing and beat­ing their breasts, but they re­joiced secretly and soon began to laugh and talk among them­selves, point­ing out to each other the strongest and most richly dressed of Khaled’s fol­low­ers, as though choos­ing hus­bands among them. But one of them neither wept nor spoke to her com­pan­ions, but stood si­lently watch­ing Khaled, and when he sat down upon a car­pet in the chief kah­wah of the house, she brought him drink in a gob­let set with pearls from Katar, and sat down at his feet as though she had been his wife. But he took little heed of her at first, for he was busy with grave mat­ters.

The other wo­men, see­ing what she did, thought that she was act­ing wisely in the hope of gain­ing Khaled’s fa­vour, see­ing that he was the chief of their en­emies, so they, too, came near, and brought wa­ter for his hands, and per­fumes, and sweet­meats, think­ing to outdo her. But she pushed them away, tak­ing what they brought for him, and of­fer­ing it her­self.

“Are you bet­ter than we?” the wo­men said an­grily. “Has our lord chosen you for him­self, that you will not let us come near him?”

Then Khaled no­ticed her and began to won­der at her at­ten­tion and zeal.

“What is your name?” he asked. But she did not speak. “Who is she?” he in­quired of the other wo­men.

“She is an un­be­liever,” they answered con­temp­tu­ously. “And she is proud, for she trusts in her white skin and her blue eyes, and her hair which is red without henna. She thinks she is bet­ter than we. Com­mand us to un­cover our faces, that you may see and judge between us.”

“Let it be so. Let us see who is the fairest,” said Khaled, and he laughed.

Then the wo­man who sat at his feet threw aside her veil, and all the oth­ers did the same. Khaled saw that the one was cer­tainly more beau­ti­ful than the rest, for her skin was as white as milk, and her eyes like the sea of Oman when it is blue in winter. She had also long hair, plaited in three tresses which came down to her feet, red as the lo­custs when the sun shines upon them at even­ing, and not dyed.

“There is a bay mare in a stable of black ones,” Khaled said. “What is the name of the bay mare?”

“Her name is Aziz, and she is a Chris­tian,” said one of the wo­men.

“Not Aziz—Al­masta,” said the beau­ti­ful wo­man in an ac­cent which showed that she could not speak Ar­abic flu­ently. “Al­masta, a Chris­tian.”

“She was lately sent as a present to our mas­ter by the Emir of Bas­rah,” said one of the oth­ers.

“He paid a thou­sand and five hun­dred se­quins for her, for she was brought from Ge­or­gia,” said an­other. “But I am a free wo­man, and my­self the daugh­ter of an emir.”

Then all the oth­ers began to scream.

“It is a lie,” they cried. “Your father was a white slave from Syria.”

“You are fools,” re­tor­ted the wo­man who had spoken. “You should have said that you were also free wo­men and the daugh­ters of emirs. So our lord would have treated you with more con­sid­er­a­tion.”

The oth­ers saw their folly and were si­lent and drew back, but Khaled only smiled.

“As good mares are bred in the stable as in the desert,” he said, and the wo­men laughed with him at the jest, for they saw that it pleased him.

But Al­masta was si­lent and sat at his feet, look­ing into his face.

“You must learn to talk in Ar­abic,” he said, “and then you will be able to tell stor­ies of your nat­ive coun­try to the Sultan, for he loves tales of travel.”

Al­masta smiled and bent her head a little, but she did not un­der­stand all he said, be­ing but lately come into Ar­a­bia.

“I will go with you,” she answered.

“Yes. You will go with me to Riad to the Sultan, and per­haps he will make you his wife, for he has none at present.”

“I will go with you,” she re­peated, look­ing at him.

“She does not un­der­stand you,” said the wo­men, laugh­ing at her ig­nor­ance of their own tongue.

“It is no mat­ter,” said Khaled. “She will learn in due time. Per­haps it has pleased Al­lah to send my lord the Sultan a wife without a tongue for a bless­ing in his old age.”

“I will go with you,” Al­masta said again.

“She can say noth­ing else,” jeered the wo­men.

One of them pulled her by her up­per gar­ment, so that she looked round.

“Can you say this: ‘My father was a dog and the son of dogs’?” asked the wo­man.

But Al­masta pushed her an­grily away, for she half un­der­stood. Then the wo­man grew angry too, and shook her fist in Al­masta’s face.

“If you fight, you shall eat sticks,” said Khaled, and then they were all quiet.

Thus he took pos­ses­sion of the city of Haïl and re­main­ing there some time he re­duced all the coun­try to sub­mis­sion, so that it re­mained a part of the king­dom of Ne­jed for many years after that. For the power of the Sham­mars was broken, and they could nowhere have mustered a thou­sand men able to bear arms. Khaled set a gov­ernor in the place of the Sultan and ordered all the laws of the coun­try in the same man­ner as those of Ne­jed, and after he had been ab­sent from Riad nearly two months, he set aside a part of his force to re­main be­hind and keep the peace in case there should be an out­break, and with the rest he began to jour­ney home­ward, tak­ing a great spoil and many cap­tives with him.

Dur­ing the march most of the wo­men cap­tives rode on camels, but a few of the most beau­ti­ful were taken in lit­ters lest the fa­tigues of rid­ing should in­jure their ap­pear­ance and thus di­min­ish their value. Al­masta was one of these, and the Sultan of Haïl was taken in a cage as has been said, though he was not oth­er­wise ill-treated, and re­ceived his por­tion of camel’s meat and bread, equal to that of the sol­diers.

Khaled sent mes­sen­gers on fleet mares to Riad to give warn­ing of his com­ing, but he could not him­self pro­ceed very quickly, be­cause his army was burdened with so much spoil; and as there was now no haste to over­take an en­emy he jour­neyed chiefly at night, rest­ing dur­ing the day wherever there was wa­ter, for al­though the sum­mer was far ad­vanced it was still hot. He thought con­tinu­ally of Ze­howah, by day in his tent and by night on the march, for he sup­posed that she would be glad when she heard of the vic­tory and that she would now love him, be­cause he had avenged her people, and taken Haïl, and brought back gold and cap­tives, be­sides other treas­ures.

“She was already pleased with my deeds, be­fore we left Riad,” he thought, “for she asked me how many of the Sham­mars I had slain with my own hand, and at the last she wished me to stay with her, most prob­ably that I might tell her more about the fight. How much the more will she be glad now, since I have killed so many more and have brought back treas­ure, and made a whole coun­try sub­ject to her father. Shall not blood and gold buy the love of a wo­man?”

It chanced once dur­ing this jour­ney that Khaled was sit­ting at the door of his tent after the sun had gone down and be­fore the night march had be­gun. Upon the one side, at a little dis­tance, was the tent of the wo­men cap­tives who had been taken from the palace in Haïl, and upon the other the sol­diers had set down the cage in which the Sultan of Sham­mar was car­ried. The men had laid a car­pet over the cage to keep the sun from the pris­oner dur­ing the heat of the day, lest he should not reach Riad alive as Khaled de­sired. For the Sultan was fat and of a choleric tem­per. Now the sol­diers had given him food but had for­got­ten to bring him wa­ter, and it was hot un­der the car­pet now that the even­ing had come. But he could lift it up a little on one side, and hav­ing done so, he began to cry out, curs­ing Khaled and rail­ing at him, not know­ing that he was so near at hand.

“Oh you whose por­tion it shall be to broil ever­last­ingly, and to eat thistles and thorns, and to lie bound in red-hot chains as I lie in this cage! Have you brought me out into the desert to die of thirst like a lame camel? Surely your en­ter­tain­ment on the day of judg­ment shall be boil­ing wa­ter and the fruit of Al Zakkam, and whenever you try to get out of hell you shall be dragged back again and beaten with iron clubs, and your skin shall dis­solve, and the boil­ing wa­ter shall be poured upon your head!”

In this way the cap­tive cried out, for he was very thirsty. But when Khaled saw that no one gave him wa­ter he called in the dark­ness to the wo­men who sat by their tent.

“Fetch wa­ter and give the man to drink,” he said.

One of the wo­men rose quickly and filled a jar at the well close by, and took it to the cage. But then the rail­ing and curs­ing broke out afresh, so that Khaled wondered what had happened.

“Who has sent me this un­be­liev­ing wo­man to tor­ture me with thirst?” cried the pris­oner. “Are you not Aziz whom I was about to take for my fourth wife on ac­count of your red hair? But your hair shall be a per­petual flame here­after, burn­ing the bones of your head, and your flesh shall be white with heat as iron in a forge. If I were still in my king­dom you should eat many sticks! If Al­lah de­liv­ers me from my en­emies I will cause your skin to be em­broidered with gold for a trap­ping to my horse!”

The moon rose at this time, be­ing a little past the full, and Khaled looked to­wards the cage and saw that the wo­man was stand­ing two paces away from the Sultan’s out­stretched hand. She dabbled in the cool wa­ter with her fin­gers so that a plash­ing sound was heard, and then drank her­self, and scattered af­ter­wards a few drops in the face of the thirsty cap­tive.

“It is good wa­ter,” she said. “It is cold.”

Khaled knew from her broken speech that it was Al­masta, and he un­der­stood that she was tor­tur­ing the pris­oner with the sound and sight of the wa­ter, and with her words. So he rose from his place and went to the cage.

“Did I not tell you to give him drink?” he asked, stand­ing be­fore the wo­man.

“Oh my lord, be mer­ci­ful,” cried the cap­tive, when he saw that Khaled him­self was there. “Be mer­ci­ful and let me drink, for your heart is eas­ily moved to pity, and by an act of char­ity you shall here­after sit in the shade of the tree Sedrat and drink forever of the wine of para­dise.”

“I do not de­sire wine,” said Khaled. “But you shall cer­tainly not thirst. Give him the jar,” he said to Al­masta. But she shook her head.

“He is bad and ugly,” she said. “If he does not drink, he will die.”

Then Khaled put out his hand to take the jar of wa­ter, but Al­masta threw it vi­ol­ently to the ground, and it broke to pieces. Thereupon the cap­tive began again to rail and curse at Al­masta and to im­plore Khaled with many bless­ings.

“You shall drink, for I will bring wa­ter my­self,” said Khaled. He went back to his tent and took his own jar to the well, and filled it care­fully.

When he turned he saw that Al­masta was run­ning from his tent to­wards the cage, with a drawn sword in her hand. He then ran also, and be­ing very swift of foot, he over­took her just as she thrust at the Sultan through the bars. But the sword caught in the folds of the soft car­pet, and Khaled took it from her hand, and thrust her down so that she fell upon her knees. Then he gave the pris­oner the jar with the wa­ter that re­mained in it, for some had been spilt as he ran.

“Who has given you the right to kill my cap­tives?” he asked of Al­masta.

“Kill me, then!” she cried.

“Indeed, if you were not so valu­able, I would cut off your head,” Khaled answered. “Why do you wish me to kill you?”

“I hate him,” she said, point­ing to the cap­tive who was drink­ing like a thirsty camel.

“That is no reason why I should kill you. Go back to the tents.”

But Al­masta laid her hand on the sword he held and tried to bring it to her own throat.

“This is a strange wo­man,” said Khaled. “Why do you wish to die? You shall go to Riad and be the Sultan’s wife.”

“No, no!” she cried. “Kill me! Not him, not him!”

“Of whom do you speak?”

“Him!” she answered, again point­ing to the pris­oner. “Is he not the Sultan?”

Khaled laughed aloud, for he saw that she had sup­posed she was to be taken to Riad to be made the wife of the Sultan of Sham­mar. Indeed, the other wo­men had told her so, to an­ger her.

“Not this man,” he said, en­deav­our­ing to make her un­der­stand. “There is an­other Sultan at Riad. The Sultan of Sham­mar is one, the Sultan of Ne­jed an­other.”

“You?” she asked, sud­denly spring­ing up. “With you?”

The moon was bright and Khaled saw that her eyes gleamed like stars and her face grew warm, and when she took his hands her own were cold.

“No, not I,” he answered. “I am not the Sultan.”

But her face be­came grey in the moon­light, and she covered her head with her veil and went slowly back to her tent.

“This wo­man loves me,” Khaled thought. “And as I have not talked much with her, it must be be­cause I am strong and have conquered the people among whom she was cap­tive. How much the more then, will Ze­howah love me, for the same reason.”

So he was light of heart, and soon af­ter­wards he com­manded everything to be made ready and moun­ted his bay mare for the night march.

V

When Khaled was within half a day’s march of Riad, the Sultan came out to meet him with a great train of at­tend­ants and courtiers, with cooks bring­ing food and sweet­meats, and a num­ber of mu­si­cians. And they all en­camped to­gether for a short time in the shade of the trees, for there were gar­dens in the place. The Sultan em­braced Khaled and put upon him a very mag­ni­fi­cent gar­ment, after which they sat down to­gether in a large tent which the Sultan had brought with him. When they had eaten and re­freshed them­selves they began to talk, and Khaled told his father-in-law all that he had done, and gave him an ac­count of the spoils which he had brought back, com­mand­ing the most valu­able ob­jects to be brought into the tent. After this the Sultan de­sired to see the wo­men cap­tives.

“There is one es­pe­cially whom it may please you to take for your­self,” said Khaled, and he ordered Al­masta to be brought in.

When the male slaves had left the tent, Al­masta drew aside her veil. The Sultan looked at her and smiled, strok­ing his beard, for he was much pleased.

“Her face is like a pearl and her hair is a set­ting of red gold,” he said. “Truly she is like the sun­rise on a fair morn­ing when there are red clouds in the east.”

Al­masta looked at­tent­ively at him, and af­ter­wards she glanced at Khaled, who could not avoid look­ing at her on ac­count of her beauty. Her face was grave and in­dif­fer­ent. Then Khaled told the Sultan how she had hated the Sultan of Sham­mar and had tried to kill him on the jour­ney.

“This is a dan­ger­ous wo­man, my son,” said the old man. But he laughed as he said it, for al­though he was old, he was no cow­ard. “She is dan­ger­ous, in­deed. Will you love me, pearl of my soul’s treas­ures?” he in­quired of her, still smil­ing.

“You are my lord and my mas­ter,” she answered, look­ing down.

When Khaled heard this he wondered whether his father-in-law would get any af­fec­tion from her. Ze­howah had answered in the same words.

“By Al­lah, I will give you such gifts as will make you love me,” said the Sultan. “What shall I give you?”

“His head,” answered Al­masta, rais­ing her eyes quickly.

“The head of the Sultan of Sham­mar?”

Al­masta nod­ded, and Khaled could see that her lips trembled.

“A dead man has no com­pan­ions,” said the Sultan, look­ing at Khaled to see what he would do. But Khaled cared little, and said noth­ing.

So the Sultan called a slave and ordered the cap­tive’s head to be struck off im­me­di­ately. Then Al­masta threw her­self upon the car­pet on the floor of the tent and em­braced his feet.

“See how eas­ily the love of a wo­man is got,” Khaled thought, “even by an old man whose beard is grey and his limbs heavy.”

When Al­masta rose again, she looked at Khaled tri­umphantly, as though to re­mind him of the night on the jour­ney when he had hindered her from killing the cap­tive in his cage. But though he un­der­stood her, he held his peace, for he had cared noth­ing whether the pris­oner lived or died after he had de­livered him over to his father-in-law, and he was con­sid­er­ing whether he might not please Ze­howah in some sim­ilar man­ner. This was not easy, how­ever, for he was not aware that Ze­howah had any private en­emy, whose head he might of­fer her.

After the Sultan had seen the other wo­men and the best of the spoils, Khaled begged that he might be al­lowed to ride on into Riad alone, for he saw that the Sultan in­ten­ded to spend the night in feast­ing where he had en­camped. The Sultan was so much pleased with Al­masta and so greatly di­ver­ted in ex­amin­ing the rich stuffs and the gold and sil­ver ves­sels and jew­els, that he let Khaled go, al­most without try­ing to de­tain him, though he made him many speeches prais­ing his con­duct of the war, and would have loaded him with gifts. But Khaled would take noth­ing with him, say­ing that he would only re­ceive his just share with the rest; and the fame of his gen­er­os­ity im­me­di­ately went abroad among the sol­diers and the Be­douins through­out all the camp.

“For,” said Khaled, “there is not a fleeter mare than mine among all those we have taken; my sword proves to be a good one, for I have tried it well; as for wo­men, I am sat­is­fied with one wife; and be­sides a wife, a sword and a horse, there are no treas­ures in the world which I covet.”

So Khaled rode away alone into Riad, for he de­sired no com­pany, be­ing busy with his own thoughts. He reached the gates at night­fall and went im­me­di­ately to the palace and entered Ze­howah’s apart­ments. He found her sit­ting among her wo­men in her ac­cus­tomed place, listen­ing to the tales of an old wo­man who sat in the midst of the circle. As soon as Ze­howah saw her hus­band she sprang up gladly to meet him, as a friend would have done.

“Though it is sum­mer­time, I have pur­sued the en­emy,” said Khaled. “And though the sun was hot, I have got the vic­tory and brought home the spoil.”

He said this re­mem­ber­ing how she had tried to hinder him from go­ing. Then he gave her his sword and he sat down with her, while the wo­men brought food and drink, for he was weary, and hungry and thirsty. The wo­men also brought their mu­sical in­stru­ments and began to sing songs in praise of Khaled’s deeds; but after a time he sent them all away and re­mained alone with Ze­howah.

“O Ze­howah,” he said, “you are my law and my rule. You are my speech and my oc­cu­pa­tion. You are my Kebla to which I turn in prayer. For the love of you I have got the vic­tory over many foes. And yet I see that your cheek is cold and the light of your eyes is un­dis­turbed. Have you no other en­emies for me to des­troy, or have you no secret foe whose head would be a pleas­ant gift?”

Ze­howah laughed, as she fanned him with a palm leaf.

“Do you still thirst for war, Khaled?” she asked. “Truly you have swal­lowed up all our en­emies as the dry sand swal­lows up wa­ter. Where shall I find en­emies enough for you to slay? You went out in pride and you have re­turned in glory. Are you not yet sat­is­fied? And as for any secret foe, if I have any I do not know him. Rest, there­fore; eat and drink and spend your days in peace.”

“I care little for either food or drink,” Khaled answered, “and I need little rest.”

“Will noth­ing but war please you? Must you over­come Egypt and make Syria pay trib­ute as far as Damas­cus be­fore you will rest?”

“I will con­quer the whole world for you, if you wish it,” said Khaled.

“What should I do with the world?” asked Ze­howah. “Have I not treas­ures and gar­ments enough and to spare, be­sides the spoil you have now brought home? And be­sides, if you would con­quer the world you must needs make war upon true be­liev­ers, amongst whom we do not count the people of Sham­mar. Be sat­is­fied there­fore and rest in peace.”

“How shall I be sat­is­fied un­til I have kindled the light in Ze­howah’s eyes at my com­ing, and un­til I feel that her hand is cold and trembles when I take it in mine?”

“Do I say to my eyes, ‘be dull’—or to my hand, ‘do not tremble’?” Ze­howah asked. “Is this, which you ask of me, some­thing I can com­mand at will, as I can a smile or a word? If it is, teach me and I will learn. But if not, why do you ex­pect of me what I can­not do? Can a camel gal­lop like a horse, or a horse trot like a camel, or bear great bur­dens through the desert? Have you come back from a great war only to talk of this some­thing which you call love, which is yours and not mine, which you feel and I can­not feel, which you can­not ex­plain nor de­scribe, and which, after all, is but a whim of the fancy, as one man loves sour drink and an­other sweet?”

“Do you think that love is noth­ing but a whim of the fancy?” asked Khaled bit­terly.

“What else can it be? Would you love me if you were blind?”

“Yes.”

“And if you were deaf?”

“Yes.”

“And if you could not touch my face with your hands, nor kiss me with your lips?”

“Yes.”

Ze­howah laughed.

“Then love is in­deed a fancy. For if you could not see me, nor touch me, nor hear me, what would re­main to you but an empty thought?”

“Have I seen you, or touched you, or heard your voice for these two months and a half?” asked Khaled. “Yet I have loved you as much dur­ing all that time.”

“You mean that you have thought of me, as I have thought of you, by the memory of what was not fancy, but real­ity. Would you dis­pute with me, Khaled? You will find me subtle.”

“There is more wit in my arm than in my head,” Khaled answered, “and it is not easy for a man to per­suade a wo­man.”

“It is very easy, provided that the man have reason on his side. But where are the treas­ures you have brought back, the slaves and the rich spoils? I would gladly see some of them, for the mes­sen­gers you sent told great tales of the riches of Haïl.”

“To­mor­row they will be brought into the city. Your father has re­mained feast­ing in the gar­dens to­wards Derey­iyah, and the whole army with him. I rode hither alone.”

“Why did you not re­main too?”

“Be­cause that whim of the fancy which I call love brought me back,” Khaled answered.

“Then I am glad you love me,” said Ze­howah. “For I am glad you came quickly.”

“Are you truly glad?”

“I was very tired of my wo­men,” she answered. “I am sorry you have brought noth­ing with you. Are there any among the cap­tives who are beau­ti­ful?”

“There is one, a present sent lately to the Sultan of Sham­mar. She is very beau­ti­ful, and un­like all the rest. Your father is much pleased with her, and will per­haps marry her.”

“Of what kind is her beauty?” asked Ze­howah.

“She is as white as milk, her eyes are twin sap­phires, her mouth is a rose, her hair is like gold reddened in fire.”

Ze­howah was si­lent for a while, and twis­ted a string of musk-beads round her fin­gers.

“The oth­ers are all Ar­a­bian wo­men,” Khaled said at last.

“Why did you not keep the beau­ti­ful one for your­self?” asked Ze­howah, sud­denly throw­ing aside her beads and look­ing at him curi­ously. “Surely you, who have borne the brunt of the war, might have chosen for your­self what pleased you best.”

Khaled looked at her in great as­ton­ish­ment.

“Have I not mar­ried Ze­howah? Would you have me take an­other wife?”

“Why not? Is it not law­ful for a man to take four wives at one time? And this wo­man might have loved you, as you de­sire to be loved.”

“Would it be noth­ing to you, if I took her?”

“Noth­ing. I am the King’s daugh­ter. I shall al­ways be first in the house. I say, she might love you. Then you would be sat­is­fied.”

“Ze­howah, Ze­howah!” cried Khaled. “Is love a piece of gold, that it mat­ters not whence it be, so long as a man has it in his own pos­ses­sion? Or is it wood of the ’Ood tree that one may buy it and bring it home and make the whole house fra­grant with it? Is a man’s heart like his belly, which is alike sat­is­fied with dif­fer­ent kinds of food?”

“He who eats, knows by the taste whether he eats Per­sian mut­ton, or bar­ley bread, or only broiled lo­custs. But a man who be­lieves that he is loved, knows that he is loved, so far as know­ing is pos­sible, and must be sat­is­fied, if to be loved is what he de­sires.”

“That may be true. But he who de­sires bread is not sat­is­fied with lo­custs. It is your love which I would have. Not the love of an­other.”

“You are like a man who hopes to get by ar­gu­ment a sum of money from one who has noth­ing,” said Ze­howah, smil­ing at him. “Can you make gold grow in the purse of a beg­gar? Or can you cause a ghada bush to bear dates by reas­on­ing with it? Your heart is a palm tree, but mine is a ghada bush.”

“Yet an an­gel may touch the ghada and it will bear fruit,” answered Khaled, for he re­membered how the an­gel had turned dry leaves into rich gar­ments for him to wear.

“Doubt­less, Al­lah can do all things. But where is the an­gel? Hear me, Khaled, for I speak very reas­on­ably, as a wife should speak to her hus­band, who is her lord and mas­ter. My lord is not sat­is­fied with me and de­sires some­thing of me which is not mine to give. Let him take an­other wife be­side me. I have given my lord a king­dom and great riches and power. Let him take an­other wife now, who will give him this fancy of his thoughts for which he yearns, though she have no other pos­ses­sions. In this way my lord will be sat­is­fied.”

Khaled listened sadly to what Ze­howah said, and he began to des­pair, for he was not subtle in ar­gu­ment nor elo­quent in speech. The reason of this was plain. In the days when he had been one of the genii he had wandered over the whole Earth and had heard the elo­quence of all na­tions and the ar­gu­ments of all philo­soph­ers, learn­ing there­from that deeds are no part of words, and that they who would be be­lieved must speak little and do much. But the genii pos­sess no in­sight into the hearts of wo­men.

Khaled re­flec­ted also that the length of life gran­ted him was un­cer­tain, and that he had already spent two months and a half at a dis­tance from Ze­howah in ac­com­plish­ing the con­quest whereby he had hoped to win her love. But since this had ut­terly failed, he cast about in his mind for some new deed to do, which could be done without leav­ing her even for a short time. But he was troubled by her in­dif­fer­ence, and most of all by her pro­pos­ing that he should take an­other wife. As he thought of this, he was filled with hor­ror, and he un­der­stood that he loved Ze­howah more than he had sup­posed, since he could not bear to think of set­ting an­other wo­man be­side her.

Then his face be­came very dark and his eyes were like camp fires far off in the desert, and he took Ze­howah’s wrist in his hand, hold­ing it tightly as though he would not let it go. As his heart grew hot in his breast, words came to his lips un­awares like the speech of a man in a dream, and he heard his own voice as it were from a dis­tance.

“I will not take an­other,” he said. “What is the love of any other wo­man to me? It is as dust in the throat of a man thirst­ing for wa­ter. Show me a wo­man who loves me. Her face shall be but a cold mir­ror in which the im­age of a fire is re­flec­ted without warmth, her soft words shall be to me as the scream­ing of a par­rot, her touch a thorn and her lips ashes. What is it to me if all the wo­men of the world love me? Kindle a fire and burn them be­fore me, for I care not. Let them per­ish all to­gether, for I shall not know that they are gone. I love you and not an­other. Shall it profit a man to fill his mouth with dust, though it be the dust of gold mingled with pre­cious stones, when he de­sires wa­ter? Or shall he be warmed in winter by the re­flec­tion of a fire in a mir­ror? By Al­lah! I want neither the wealth of Haïl, nor a wife with red hair. Let them take gold who do not ask for love. I want but one thing, and Ze­howah alone can give it to me. Wal­lah! My heart burns. But I would give it to be burned forever in hell if I might get your love now. This I ask. This only I de­sire. For this I will suf­fer and for this I am ready to die be­fore my time.”

Ze­howah was si­lent, look­ing at him with won­der, and yet not al­to­gether pleased. She saw that she could not un­der­stand him, though she did as well as she could.

“Has he not all that the heart of man can de­sire?” she thought. “Am I not young and beau­ti­ful, and pos­sessed of many jew­els and treas­ures? Have I not given him wealth and power, and has he not with his own hand got the vic­tory over his en­emies and mine? And yet he is not sat­is­fied. Surely, he is too hard to please.”

But he, read­ing her thoughts from her face, con­tin­ued in his speech.

“What is all the hap­pi­ness of the world without love?” he asked. “It is like a ban­quet in which many rich vi­ands are served, but the guests can­not eat them be­cause there is no salt in any of them. And what is a beau­ti­ful wo­man without love? She is like a garden in which there are all kinds of rare flowers, and much grass, and deep shade, but in which a man can­not live, be­cause noth­ing grows there which he can eat when he is hungry.”

“Truly,” said Ze­howah, “that is what you will make of your life. For there is a garden called Irem, planted in a secret place of the deserts about Aden, by Shed­dad the son of Ad, who de­sired to outdo the gar­dens of para­dise, and was des­troyed for his im­pi­ety with all his people, by the hand of Al­lah. But a cer­tain man named Ab­dul­lah ibn Kela­bah was search­ing in the desert for a lost camel, and came un­awares upon this place. There were fruits and wa­ter there and all that a man could wish for, and Ab­dul­lah dwelt in peace and plenty, prais­ing Al­lah. Then on a cer­tain day he de­sired to eat an onion, and find­ing none any­where, he went out, in­tend­ing to ob­tain one, and hav­ing eaten it, to re­turn im­me­di­ately. But though he searched the desert many months he was never able to find the garden again. Where­fore it is said that Ab­dul­lah ibn Kela­bah lost the earthly para­dise of Irem for a mouth­ful of onion.”

“How can you un­der­stand me if you do not love me?” asked Khaled. “Love has its own lan­guage, and when two love they un­der­stand each the other’s words. But when the one loves and the other loves not, they are strangers, though they be man and wife; or they are like Per­sians and Ar­a­bi­ans not un­der­stand­ing either the other’s speech, or that if the wife cries ‘father,’ her hus­band will bring her a cup of wa­ter sup­pos­ing her to be thirsty. For those who would speak one lan­guage must be of one heart, and they who would be of one heart must love each other.”

Then Ze­howah sighed and leaned against the cush­ions by the wall and drew her hand away from Khaled.

“What is it?” she asked in a low voice. “What is it you would have?” But though she had already asked the ques­tion many times she found no an­swer, and none that he was able to give could en­lighten her dark­ness.

“It is the spark that kindles the flame,” Khaled said, and he poin­ted to the lights that hung in the room. “Your beauty is like that of a cun­ningly de­signed lamp, in­laid with gold and sil­ver and covered with rich or­na­ment, which is seen by day. But there is no light within, and it is cold, though it be full of oil and the wick be ready.”

Ze­howah turned to­wards him some­what im­pa­tiently.

“And you are as one who would kindle the flame with words, hav­ing no torch,” she answered.

“Have I not done deeds also?” asked Khaled. “Or have I spoken much, that you should re­proach me? Surely I have slain more of your en­emies than I have spoken words to you to­night.”

“But have I asked for an of­fer­ing of blood, or a mar­riage dower of dead bod­ies?”

Khaled was si­lent, for he was bit­terly dis­ap­poin­ted, and as his eyes fell upon the sword which hung on the wall, he felt that he could al­most have taken it and made an end of Ze­howah for very an­ger that she would not love him. Had he not gone out for her into the ra­ging heat of sum­mer, and borne the bur­den of a great war, and des­troyed a na­tion and taken a city? Moreover, if neither words nor deeds could gain her love, what means re­mained to him to try?

All through the night Khaled pondered, call­ing up all that he had seen in the world in former times, un­til he fell asleep at last, wear­ied in heart.

Very early in the morn­ing one of Ze­howah’s wo­men came and stood by his bed and waked him. He could see that her face was pale in the dawn, her limbs trembled and her voice was un­cer­tain.

“Arise, my lord!” she said. “A mes­sen­ger has come from the army with evil news, and stands wait­ing in the court.”

Khaled sprang up, and Ze­howah awoke also.

“What is this mes­sage?” he asked hast­ily.

But the wo­man threw her­self upon the floor and covered her face, as though beg­ging for­give­ness be­cause she brought evil tid­ings.

“Speak!” said Ze­howah. “What is it?”

“Our lord the Sultan is dead!” cried the wo­man, and she broke out into weep­ing and cry­ing and would say noth­ing more.

But when Ze­howah heard that her father was dead, she sat down upon the floor and beat her breast and tore her hair, and wailed and wept, while all the wo­men of the harem came and gathered round her and joined in her mourn­ing, so that the whole palace was filled with the noise of their lam­ent­a­tions.

Khaled went out into the court and ques­tioned the mes­sen­ger, who told him that the Sultan had held a great feast in the even­ing in the gar­dens of Derey­iyah, hav­ing with him the wo­man Al­masta and the other cap­tive wo­men, and be­ing served by black slaves. But, sud­denly, in the night, when most of the sol­diers were already asleep, there had been a great cry, and the slaves and wo­men had come run­ning from the tent, cry­ing that the Sultan was dead. This was true, and the Jew­ish phys­i­cian who had gone out with his mas­ter de­clared that he had died from an ac­cess of hu­mours to the head, brought on by a sur­feit of sweet­meats, there be­ing at the time an evil con­junc­tion of Zo­harah and Al Marech in square as­pect to the moon and in the house of death.

Khaled there­fore moun­ted his bay mare and rode quickly out to Derey­iyah, where he found that the news was true, and the wo­men were already pre­par­ing the Sultan’s body for burial. Hav­ing ordered the mourn­ing, and com­manded the army to pre­pare for the re­turn to the city, Khaled set out with the fu­neral pro­ces­sion; and when he reached the walls of Riad he turned to the left and passed round to the north­east side of the city where the burial-ground is situ­ated. Here he laid the body of his father-in-law in the tomb which the lat­ter had pre­pared for him­self dur­ing his life­time, and af­ter­wards, dis­miss­ing the mourn­ers, he went back into the city to the palace.

After the days of mourn­ing were ac­com­plished, the will of the Sultan was made known, though in­deed the people were well ac­quain­ted with it already. By his will Khaled suc­ceeded to the sov­er­eignty of the king­dom of Ne­jed and to all the riches and treas­ures which the Sultan had ac­cu­mu­lated dur­ing his life­time. But the people re­ceived the an­nounce­ment with ac­clam­a­tions and much joy, fol­lowed by a great feast­ing, for which in­nu­mer­able camels were slain. Khaled also called all the chief of­ficers and courtiers to a ban­quet and ad­dressed them in a few words, ac­cord­ing to his man­ner.

“Men of Ne­jed,” he said, “it has pleased Al­lah to re­move to the com­pan­ion­ship of the faith­ful our mas­ter the Sultan, my revered father-in-law, upon whom be peace, and to set me up among you as King in his stead, be­ing the hus­band of his only daugh­ter, which you all know. As for the past, you know me; but if I have wronged any man let him de­clare it and I will make re­par­a­tion. And if not, let none com­plain here­after. But as for the fu­ture I will be a just ruler so long as I live, and will lead the men of Ne­jed to war, when there is war, and will di­vide the spoil fairly; and in peace I will not op­press the people with taxes nor change the just and good laws of the king­dom. And now the feast is pre­pared. Sit down cheer­fully, and may Al­lah give us both the ap­pet­ite to en­joy and the strength to di­gest all the good things which shall be set be­fore us.”

But Khaled him­self ate spar­ingly, for his heart was heavy, and when they had feasted and drunk treng juice and heard mu­sic, he re­tired to the harem, where he found Ze­howah sit­ting with Al­masta, the Ge­or­gian wo­man, there be­ing no other wo­men present in the room. He was sur­prised when he saw Al­masta, though he knew that the cap­tive wo­men had been lodged in the palace, the dis­tri­bu­tion of the spoil from the war hav­ing been put off by the mourn­ing for the Sultan.

When Al­masta heard him enter, she looked up quickly and a bright col­our rose in her face, as when the juice of a pomegranate is poured into milk, and dis­ap­peared again as the false dawn be­fore morn­ing, leav­ing no trace. Khaled sat down.

“Is not this the wo­man of whom you spoke?” Ze­howah asked. “I knew her from the rest by her red hair.”

“This is the wo­man. Your father would have taken her for his wife. But Al­lah has dis­posed oth­er­wise.”

“She is beau­ti­ful. She is worthy to be a king’s wife,” said Ze­howah.

“The Sultan?” asked Al­masta, for she hardly un­der­stood. Her face turned as white as bone bleached by the sun, and her fin­gers trembled, while her eyes were cast down.

Ze­howah looked at Khaled and laughed.

“See how she trembles and turns pale be­fore you,” she said. “And a little while ago her face was red. You have found a torch where­with to kindle this lamp, and a breath that can ex­tin­guish it.”

“I do not know,” Khaled answered. But he looked at­tent­ively at Al­masta and re­mained si­lent for some time. “It is now ne­ces­sary to di­vide the spoils of the war,” he said at last, “and to be­stow such of these wo­men as you do not wish to keep upon the most de­serving of the of­ficers.”

“My lord will surely take the fairest for him­self, since she loves him,” said Ze­howah, again laugh­ing, but some­what bit­terly.

“May my tongue be cloven and my eyes be put out, may my hands wither at the wrists and my feet fall from my ankles, if I ever take any wife but you,” said Khaled. “Yal­lah! So be it.”

When Ze­howah heard him say this, even while Al­masta’s face was un­veiled be­fore him, she un­der­stood that he was greatly in earn­est.

“Let me keep her for my hand­maid,” she said at last.

“Is she mine that you need ask me? But it will be wiser to give her to Ab­dul Kerim, the sheikh of the horse­men. I have prom­ised that the spoil should be fairly di­vided, and though few have seen this wo­man many have heard of her beauty. And be­sides, she would weary you, for she can­not talk in Ar­a­bian, nor does she seem quick to learn. Ab­dul Kerim has the first right, since Al­lah has re­moved your father, upon whom be peace.”

“Your words are my laws,” answered Ze­howah obed­i­ently. “And, in­deed, it may be that you are right, for I be­lieve she can neither dance nor sing, nor play upon any mu­sical in­stru­ment. She would cer­tainly weary me after a time, as you say. Give her there­fore to Ab­dul Kerim for his share.”

They then made Al­masta un­der­stand that she was to be given to the sheikh of the horse­men; but when she had un­der­stood she shook her head and smiled, though at first she said noth­ing, so that Khaled and Ze­howah wondered whether she had com­pre­hen­ded what they had told her.

“Do you un­der­stand what we have told you?” asked Ze­howah, who was di­ver­ted by her ig­nor­ance of the Ar­abic lan­guage.

“I un­der­stand.”

“And are you not pleased that you are to be the wife of Ab­dul Kerim, who is a rich man and still young?”

“I was to be the Sultan’s wife,” said Al­masta, with dif­fi­culty, look­ing at Khaled. “You told me so.”

“The Sultan is dead,” Khaled answered.

“Who is the Sultan now?” she asked.

“Khaled is the Sultan,” said Ze­howah.

“You said that I should be the Sultan’s wife,” Al­masta re­peated.

“Doubt­less, I said so,” Khaled replied. “But Al­lah has ordered it oth­er­wise.”

Al­masta again smiled and shook her head.

VI

On the fol­low­ing day Khaled made a di­vi­sion of the spoils, and gave Al­masta to Ab­dul Kerim, en­join­ing upon him to marry her, since he had but two wives and could do so law­fully. The sheikh of the horse­men was glad, for he had heard much of Al­masta’s beauty, and he loved fair wo­men, be­ing of a fierce tem­per and not more than forty years old. So he called his friends to the mar­riage feast that same day, and Ze­howah sent Al­masta in a lit­ter to his harem, giv­ing her also nu­mer­ous rich gar­ments by way of a dower, but which in fact were due to Ab­dul Kerim as his share of the booty. So the men feasted, with mu­sic, un­til the even­ing, when the bride­groom re­tired to the harem and the Kadi came and read the con­tract; after which Ab­dul Kerim sat down while Al­masta was brought be­fore him in vari­ous dresses, one after the other, as is cus­tom­ary.

When the wo­men were all gone away, Ab­dul Kerim began to talk to his wife, but she only laughed and said the few words she knew, not know­ing what he said, and presently she began to sing to him in a low voice, in her own lan­guage. Her voice was very clear and quite dif­fer­ent from that of the Ar­a­bian wo­men whom Ab­dul had heard, and the tones vi­brated with great pas­sion and sweet­ness, so that he was en­chanted and listened, as in a dream, while his head res­ted against Al­masta’s knee. She con­tin­ued to sing in such a man­ner that his soul was trans­por­ted with de­light; and at last, as the sound soothed him, he fell into a gentle sleep.

Al­masta, still singing softly, loosened his vest, touch­ing him so gently that he did not wake. She then drew out of one of the three tresses of her hair a fine steel needle, ex­tremely long and sharp, hav­ing at one end a small wooden ball for a handle, and while she sang, she thrust it very quickly into his breast to its full length, so that it pierced his heart and he died in­stantly. But she con­tin­ued to sing, lest any of the wo­men should be listen­ing from a dis­tance. Presently she with­drew the needle so slowly that not a drop of blood fol­lowed it, and hav­ing made it pass thrice through the car­pet she re­stored it to her hair, after which she fastened the dead man’s vest again, so that noth­ing was dis­ar­ranged. She sang on, after this for some time, and then after a short si­lence she sprang up from the couch, ut­ter­ing loud screams and lam­ent­a­tions and beat­ing her breast vi­ol­ently.

The wo­men of the harem came in quickly, and when they saw that their mas­ter was dead, they sat down with Al­masta and wept with her, for as he lay dead there was no mark of any vi­ol­ence nor any sign whereby it could be told that he had not died nat­ur­ally.

When Khaled heard that Ab­dul Kerim was dead, he was much grieved at heart, for the man had been brave and had been of­ten at his right hand in battle. But the news be­ing brought to him at dawn when he awoke, he im­me­di­ately sent the Jew­ish phys­i­cian of the court to as­cer­tain if pos­sible the cause of the sud­den death. The phys­i­cian made care­ful ex­am­in­a­tion of the body, and hav­ing pur­i­fied him­self re­turned to Khaled to give an ac­count.

“I have ex­ecuted my lord’s or­ders with scru­pu­lous ex­act­ness,” he said, “and I find that without doubt the sheikh of the horse­men died sud­denly by an ac­cess of hu­mours to the heart, the sun be­ing at that time in the nadir, for he died about mid­night, and be­ing moreover in evil con­junc­tion with the Dragon’s Tail in the Heart of the Lion, and not yet far from the square as­pect of Al Marech which caused the death of his majesty the late Sultan, upon whom be peace.”

But Khaled was thought­ful, for he re­flec­ted that this was the second time that a man had died sud­denly when he was about to be Al­masta’s hus­band, and he re­membered, how she had at­temp­ted to kill the Sultan of Haïl, and had ul­ti­mately brought about his death.

“Have you ex­amined the dead man as minutely as you have ob­served the stars?” he in­quired. “Is there no mark of vi­ol­ence upon him, nor of poison, nor of strangling?”

“There is no mark. By Al­lah! I speak truth. My lord may see for him­self, for the man is not yet bur­ied.”

“Am I a jackal, that I should sniff at dead bod­ies?” asked Khaled. “Go in peace.”

The phys­i­cian with­drew, for he saw that Khaled was dis­pleased, and he was him­self as much sur­prised as any­one by the death of Ab­dul Kerim, a man lean and strong, not given to sur­feit­ing and in the prime of health.

“Min Al­lah!” he said as he de­par­ted. “We are in the hand of the Lord, who knoweth our rising up and our ly­ing down. It is pos­sible that if I had seen this man at the mo­ment of death, or a little be­fore, I might have dis­covered the nature of his dis­ease, for I could have talked with him and ques­tioned him.”

But Khaled went in and talked with Ze­howah. She was greatly as­ton­ished when she heard that Al­masta’s hus­band was dead, but she was sat­is­fied with the an­swer of the Jew­ish phys­i­cian, who en­joyed great repu­ta­tion and was be­lieved to be at that time the wisest man in Ar­a­bia.

“Give her back to me, to be one of my wo­men,” said she. “It is not writ­ten that she should marry a man of Ne­jed, un­less you will take her your­self.”

But Khaled bent his brow an­grily and his eyes glowed like the coals of a camp fire which is al­most ex­tin­guished, when the night wind blows sud­denly over the ashes.

“I have spoken,” he said.

“And I have heard,” she answered. “Let there be an end. But give me this wo­man to di­vert me with her broken speech.”

“I fear she will do you an in­jury of which you may not live,” said Khaled.

“What in­jury can she do me?” asked Ze­howah in as­ton­ish­ment, not un­der­stand­ing him.

“She asked of your father the head of the Sultan of Haïl, whom she hated. And your father gave it to her.”

“Peace be upon him!” ex­claimed Ze­howah pi­ously.

“Upon him peace. And when he would have mar­ried her, he died sud­denly at the feast­ing. And now this Ab­dul Kerim, who was to have been her hus­band, is dead also, without sign, in the night, as a man stung by a ser­pent in his sleep. These are strange do­ings.”

“If you think she has done evil, let her be put to death,” said Ze­howah. “But the phys­i­cian found no mark upon Ab­dul Kerim. By the hand of Al­lah he was taken.”

“Doubt­less his fate was about his neck. But it is strange.”

Ze­howah looked at Khaled in si­lence, but presently she smiled and laid her hand upon his.

“This wo­man loves you with her whole soul,” she said. “You think that she has slain Ab­dul Kerim by secret arts, in the hope that she may marry you.”

“And your father also.”

Then they were both si­lent, and Ze­howah covered her face, since she could not pre­vent tears from fall­ing when she thought of her father, whom she had loved.

“If this be so,” she said after a long time, “let the wo­man die im­me­di­ately.”

“It is ne­ces­sary to be just,” Khaled answered. “I will put no one to death without wit­nesses, not even a cap­tive wo­man, who is cer­tainly an un­be­liever at heart. Has any­one seen her do these deeds, or does any­one know by what means a man may be slain in his sleep, or at a feast, so that no mark is left upon his body? At Derey­iyah your father was alone with her in the in­ner part of the tent, and she was singing to him that he might sleep. For I have made in­quiry. And when Ab­dul Kerim died he was also alone with her. I can­not un­der­stand these things. But you are a wo­man and subtle. It may be that you can see what is too dark for me.”

“It may be. There­fore give her back to me, and I will lay a trap for her, so that she will be­tray her­self if she has really done evil. And when we have con­victed her by her own words she shall die.”

“Are you not afraid, Ze­howah?”

“Can I change my des­tiny? If my hour is come, I shall die of a fever, or of a cold, whether she be with me or not. But if my years are not full, she can­not hurt me.”

“This is un­doubtedly true,” answered Khaled, who could find noth­ing to say. “But I will first ques­tion the wo­man my­self.”

So he sent slaves with a lit­ter to bring Al­masta from the house of mourn­ing to the palace, and when she was come he sent out all the other wo­men and re­mained alone with her and Ze­howah, mak­ing her sit down be­fore him so that he could see her face. Her cheeks were pale, for she had not slept, hav­ing been oc­cu­pied in weep­ing and lam­ent­a­tion dur­ing the whole night, and her eyes moved rest­lessly as those of a per­son dis­trac­ted with grief.

Khaled then drew his sword and laid it across his feet as he sat and looked fix­edly at Al­masta.

“If you do not speak the truth,” he said, “I will cut off your head with my own hand. Al­lah is wit­ness.”

When Al­masta saw the drawn sword, her face grew whiter than be­fore, and for some mo­ments she seemed not able to breathe. But sud­denly she began to beat her breast, and broke out into loud wail­ings, rock­ing her­self to and fro as she sat on the car­pet.

“My hus­band is dead!” she cried. “He was young; he was beau­ti­ful! He is dead! Wah! Wah! my hus­band is dead! Kill me too!”

Khaled looked at Ze­howah, but she said noth­ing, though she watched Al­masta at­tent­ively. Then Khaled spoke to the wo­man again.

“Make an end of lament­ing for the present,” he said. “It has pleased Al­lah to take your hus­band to the fel­low­ship of the faith­ful. Peace be upon him. Tell us in what man­ner he died, and what words he spoke when he felt his end ap­proach­ing, for he was my good friend and I wish to know all.”

Al­masta either did not un­der­stand or made a pre­tence of not un­der­stand­ing, but when she heard Khaled’s words she ceased from wail­ing and sobbed si­lently, beat­ing her breast from time to time.

“How did he die?” Khaled asked in a stern voice.

“He was asleep. He died,” replied Al­masta in broken tones.

“You will get no other an­swer,” said Ze­howah. “She can­not speak our tongue.”

“Is there no wo­man among them all who can talk this wo­man’s lan­guage?” asked Khaled with im­pa­tience, for he saw how use­less it was to ques­tion her.

“There is no one. I have in­quired. Leave her with me, and if there is any­thing to be known, I will try to find it out.”

So Khaled went away and Ze­howah en­deav­oured to soothe Al­masta and make her talk in her broken words. But the wo­man made as though she would not be com­for­ted, and went and sat apart upon the stone floor where there was no car­pet, rock­ing to and fro, and wail­ing in a low voice. Ze­howah un­der­stood that whatever the truth might be Al­masta was de­term­ined to ex­press her sor­row in the cus­tom­ary way, and that it would be bet­ter to leave her alone.

For seven days she sat thus apart, cov­er­ing her head and mourn­ing, and re­fus­ing to speak with any­one, so that all the wo­men sup­posed her to be in­deed dis­trac­ted with grief at the death of Ab­dul Kerim. And each day Khaled in­quired of his wife whether she had yet learned any­thing, and re­ceived the same an­swer. But in the mean­time he was oc­cu­pied with his own thoughts, as well as with the af­fairs of the king­dom, though the lat­ter were as noth­ing in his mind com­pared with the work­ings of his heart when he thought of Ze­howah.

It chanced one even­ing that Khaled was rid­ing among the gar­dens without the city, at­ten­ded only by a few horse­men, for he was simple in all his ways and liked little to have a great throng of at­tend­ants about him. So he rode alone, while the horse­men fol­lowed at a dis­tance.

“Was ever a man, or an an­gel, so placed in the world as I am placed?” he thought. “How much bet­ter would it have been had I never seen Ze­howah, and if I had never slain the In­dian prince. For I should still have been with my fel­lows, the genii, from whom I am now cut off, and at least I should have lived un­til the day of the re­sur­rec­tion. But now my horse may stumble and fall, and my neck may be broken, and there is no here­after. Or I may die in my sleep, or be killed in my sleep, and there will be no re­sur­rec­tion for me, nor any more life, any­where in Earth or heaven. For Ze­howah will never love me. Was ever a man so placed? And I am ashamed to com­plain to her any more, for she is a good wife, obed­i­ent and care­ful of my wants, and beau­ti­ful as the moon at the full, rising amidst palm trees, be­sides be­ing very wise and subtle. How can I com­plain? Has she not given me her­self, whom I de­sired, and a great king­dom which, in­deed, I did not de­sire, but which no man can des­pise as a gift? Yet I am burned up within, and my heart is melt­ing as a piece of frankin­cense laid upon coals in an empty cham­ber, when no man cares for its sweet sa­vour. Surely, I am the most wretched of man­kind. Oh, that the an­gel who made gar­ments for me of a ghada bush, and a bay mare of a lo­cust, would come down and lay his hand upon Ze­howah’s breast and make a liv­ing heart of the stone which Al­lah has set in its place!”

So he rode slowly on, reas­on­ing as he had of­ten reasoned be­fore, and reach­ing the same con­clu­sion in all his ar­gu­ment, which availed him noth­ing. But sud­denly, as the sun went down, a new thought entered his mind and gave him a little hope.

“The sun is gone down,” he said to him­self. “But Al­lah has not des­troyed the sun. It will rise in the east to­mor­row when the white cock crows in the first heaven. Many things have be­ing, which the sight of man can­not see. It may be that al­though I see no signs of love in the heaven of Ze­howah’s eyes, yet love is already there and will be­fore long rise as the sun and il­lu­min­ate my dark­ness. For I am not subtle as the evil genii are, but I must see very clearly be­fore I am able to dis­tin­guish.”

He rode back into the city, plan­ning how he might sur­prise Ze­howah and ob­tain from her un­awares some proof that she in­deed loved him. To this end he entered the palace by a secret gate, cov­er­ing his gar­ments with his aba, and his head with the ke­fi­yeh he wore, in or­der to dis­guise him­self from the slaves and the sol­diers whom he met on his way to the harem. He passed on to­wards Ze­howah’s apart­ment by an un­lighted pas­sage not gen­er­ally used, and hid him­self in a niche of the wall close to the open door, from which he could see all that happened, and hear what was said.

Ze­howah was seated in her ac­cus­tomed place and Al­masta was be­side her. Khaled could watch their faces by the light of the hanging lamps, as the two wo­men talked to­gether.

“You must put aside all mourn­ing now,” Ze­howah was say­ing. “For I will find an­other hus­band for you.”

“Another hus­band?” Al­masta smiled and shook her head.

“Yes, there are other goodly men in Riad, though Ab­dul Kerim was of the good­li­est, as all say who knew him. He was the Sultan’s friend, but he was more sol­dier than courtier. He de­served a bet­ter death.”

“Ab­dul Kerim died in peace. He was asleep.” Al­masta smiled still, but more sadly, and her eyes were cast down.

“He died in peace,” Ze­howah re­peated, watch­ing her nar­rowly. “But it is bet­ter to die in battle by the en­emy’s hand. Such a man, fall­ing in the front of the fight for the true faith, enters im­me­di­ately into para­dise, to dwell forever un­der the per­petual shade of the tree Sedrat, and neither black­ness nor shame shall cover his face. There the rivers flow with milk and with cla­ri­fied honey, and he shall rest on a couch covered with thick silk em­broidered with gold, and shall pos­sess sev­enty beau­ti­ful vir­gins whose eyes are blacker than mine and their skin whiter than yours, hav­ing col­our like ru­bies and pearls, and their voices like the song of night­in­gales in Ajjem, of which trav­el­lers tell. These are the re­wards of the true be­liever as set forth in Al Koran by our prophet, upon whom peace. A man slain in battle for the faith enters dir­ectly into the pos­ses­sion of all this, but un­be­liev­ers shall be taken by the fore­lock and the heels and cast into hell, to drink boil­ing mol­ten brass, as a thirsty camel drinks clear wa­ter.”

Al­masta un­der­stood very little of what Ze­howah said, but she smiled, nev­er­the­less, catch­ing the mean­ing of some of the words.

“The Sultan Khaled loves black eyes,” she said. “He will go to para­dise.”

“Doubt­less, he will quench his thirst in the in­cor­rupt­ible milk of heav­enly rivers,” Ze­howah replied. “He is the chief of the brave, the light of the faith and the burn­ing torch of right­eous­ness. Other­wise Al­lah would not have chosen him to rule. But I spoke of Ab­dul Kerim.”

“He died in peace,” said Al­masta the second time, and again look­ing down.

“I do not know how he died,” Ze­howah answered, look­ing stead­ily at the wo­man’s face. “It was a great mis­for­tune for you. Do you un­der­stand? I am very sorry for you. You would have been happy with Ab­dul Kerim.”

“I mourn for him,” Al­masta said, not rais­ing her eyes.

“It is nat­ural and right. Doubt­less you loved him as soon as you saw him.”

Al­masta glanced quickly at Ze­howah, as though sus­pect­ing a hid­den mean­ing in the words, and for a mo­ment each of the wo­men looked into the other’s eyes, but Ze­howah saw noth­ing. For a wise man has truly said that one may see into the depths of black eyes as into a deep well, but that blue eyes are like the sea of Oman in winter, spark­ling in the sun as a plain of blue sand, but un­der­neath more un­fathom­able than the desert.

Al­masta was too wise and de­ceit­ful to let the si­lence last. So when she had looked at Ze­howah and un­der­stood, she smiled some­what sor­row­fully and spoke.

“I could have loved him,” she said. “I de­sire no hus­band now.”

“That is not true,” Ze­howah answered quickly. “You wish to marry Khaled, and that is the reason why you killed Ab­dul Kerim.”

Al­masta star­ted as a camel struck by a flight of lo­custs.

“What is this lie?” she cried out with in­dig­na­tion. “Who has told you this lie?” But her face was as grey as a stone, and her lips trembled.

“You prob­ably killed him by ma­gic arts learned in your own coun­try,” said Ze­howah quietly. “Do not be afraid. We are alone, and no one can hear us. Tell me how you killed him. Truly it was very skil­ful of you, since the phys­i­cian, who is the wisest man in Ar­a­bia, could not tell how it was done.”

But Al­masta began to beat her breast and to make oaths and as­sev­er­a­tions in her own lan­guage, which Ze­howah could not un­der­stand.

“If you will tell me how you did it, I will give you a rich gift,” Ze­howah con­tin­ued.

But so much the more Al­masta cried out, stretch­ing her hands up­wards and speak­ing in­com­pre­hens­ible words. So Ze­howah waited un­til she be­came quiet again.

“It may be that Khaled will marry you, if you will tell me your secret,” Ze­howah said, after a time.

Then Al­masta’s cheek burned and she bent down her eyes.

“Will you tell me how to kill a man and leave no trace?” asked Ze­howah, still press­ing her. “Look at this pearl. Is it not beau­ti­ful? See how well it looks upon your hair. It is as the leaf of a white rose upon a river of red gold. And on your neck—you can­not see it your­self—it is like the full moon hanging upon a milky cloud. Khaled would give you many pearls like this, if he mar­ried you. Will you not tell me?”

“Whom do you wish to kill?” Al­masta asked, very sud­denly. But Ze­howah was un­moved.

“It may be that I have a private en­emy,” she said. “Per­haps there is one who dis­turbs me, against whom I plot in the night, but can find no way of rid­ding my­self of him. A wo­man might give much to des­troy such a one.”

“Khaled will kill your en­emies. He loves you. He will kill all whom you hate.”

“You make pro­gress. You speak our lan­guage bet­ter,” said Ze­howah, laugh­ing a little. “You will soon be able to tell the Sultan that you love him, as well as I could my­self.”

“But you do not love him,” Al­masta answered boldly.

Ze­howah bent her brows so that they met between her eyes as the grip of a bow. Then Khaled’s heart leaped in his breast, for he saw that she was angry with the wo­man, and he sup­posed it was be­cause she secretly loved him. But he held his breath lest even his breath­ing should be­tray him.

“The por­tion of fools is fire,” said Ze­howah, not deign­ing to give any other an­swer. For she was a king’s daugh­ter and Al­masta a bought slave, though Khaled had taken her in war.

“Be mer­ci­ful!” ex­claimed Al­masta, in humble tones. “I am your hand­maid, and I speak Ar­abic badly.”

“You speak with ex­ceed­ing clear­ness when it pleases you.”

“Indeed I can­not talk in your lan­guage, for it is not long since I came into Ar­a­bia.”

“We will have you taught, for we will give you a hus­band who will teach you with sticks. There is a cer­tain hunch­back, hav­ing one eye and marked with the small­pox, whose fists are as the feet of an old camel. He will be a good hus­band for you and will teach you the Ar­abic lan­guage, and your skin shall be dis­solved but your mind will be en­lightened thereby.”

“Be mer­ci­ful! I de­sire no hus­band.”

“It is good that a wo­man should marry, even though the bride­groom be a hunch­back. But if you will tell me your secret I will give you a bet­ter hus­band and for­give you.”

“There is no secret! I have killed no one!” cried Al­masta. “Who has told you the lie?”

“And moreover,” con­tin­ued Ze­howah, not re­gard­ing her prot­est­a­tions, “there are other ways of learn­ing secrets, be­sides by kind­ness; such, for in­stance, as sticks, and hot irons, and hun­ger and thirst in a prison where there are rep­tiles and pois­on­ous spiders, be­sides many other things with which I have no doubt the slaves of the palace are ac­quain­ted. It is bet­ter that you should tell your secret and be happy.”

“There is no secret,” Al­masta re­peated, and she would say noth­ing else, for she did not trust Ze­howah and feared a cruel death if she told the truth.

But Ze­howah wear­ied of the con­test at last, be­ing by no means sure that the wo­man had really done any evil, and hav­ing no in­ten­tion of us­ing any vi­ol­ent means such as she had sug­ges­ted. For she was as just as she was wise and would have no one suf­fer wrongly. Khaled, in­deed, cared little for the pain of oth­ers, hav­ing seen much blood shed in war, and would have caused Al­masta to be tor­tured if Ze­howah had de­sired it. But she did not, pre­fer­ring to wait and see whether she could not en­trap the slave into a con­fes­sion.

Khaled now came out of his hid­ing-place into the room and ad­vanced to­wards Ze­howah, who re­mained sit­ting upon the car­pet, while Al­masta rose and made a re­spect­ful sa­luta­tion. But neither of the wo­men knew that he had been hid­den in the niche. Ze­howah did not seem sur­prised, but Al­masta’s face was white and her eyes were cast down, though in­deed Khaled wished that it had been oth­er­wise. He was en­cour­aged, how­ever, by what he had seen, for Ze­howah had cer­tainly been angry with Al­masta on his ac­count, and he dis­missed the lat­ter that he might be alone with his wife.

“You are wise, Ze­howah,” he said, “and gif­ted with much in­sight, but you will learn noth­ing from this wo­man, though you talk with her a whole year. For she sus­pects you and is guarded in her speech and man­ner. I was stand­ing by the door­way a long time. You did not see me, but I heard all that you said.”

“Why did you hide your­self?” Ze­howah asked, look­ing at him curi­ously.

“In or­der to listen,” he answered. “And I heard some­thing and saw some­thing which pleased me. For when she said that you did not love me, you were angry.”

“Did that please you? You are more eas­ily pleased than I had thought. Shall I bear such things from a slave? How is it her busi­ness whether I love or not?”

“But you were angry,” Khaled re­peated, vainly hop­ing that she would say more, yet not wish­ing to press her too far, lest she should say again that she did not love him.

She, how­ever, said noth­ing in reply, but busied her­self in tak­ing his ke­fi­yeh from his head and his sword from his side that he might be at ease. He res­ted against the cush­ions and drank of the cool drink she offered him.

“This wo­man, Al­masta, is ex­ceed­ingly beau­ti­ful,” he said at last. “It would in­deed be a pity that a slave of such value should go into the pos­ses­sion of an­other so that we could see her no more. It is best that you should keep her with you.”

Ze­howah laughed a little, as she sat down be­side him and began to play with her beads.

“This is what I have al­ways said,” she answered. “I will keep her with me.”

“It is bet­ter so,” said Khaled.

Then he re­mained si­lent in deep thought, hav­ing de­vised a new plan for gain­ing what he most de­sired. It seemed to him pos­sible that Ze­howah might be moved by jeal­ousy, if by noth­ing else; for al­though he had sworn to her, and an­grily, that he would never take Al­masta for his wife, and though noth­ing could really have pre­vailed upon him to make him do so, yet it would be easy for him to talk to the wo­man and speak to her of her beauty, and ap­pear to take de­light in her singing, which was more me­lodi­ous than that of a Per­sian night­in­gale. Since she would be now per­man­ently es­tab­lished in his harem, noth­ing would be easier than for him to spend many hours in the wo­man’s so­ci­ety. Be­ing a simple-minded man the plan seemed to him subtle, and he de­term­ined to put it into ex­e­cu­tion without delay. He knew also that Al­masta had loved him since the first day when she had been brought be­fore him in the palace at Haïl, and this would make it still more easy to rouse Ze­howah’s jeal­ousy.

Though she had her­self ad­vised him to marry Al­masta, he did not be­lieve that she was greatly in earn­est, and he felt as­sured that if the pos­sib­il­ity were presen­ted be­fore her, in such a way as to ap­pear im­min­ent, she would be de­ceived by the ap­pear­ance.

“It is bet­ter that she should re­main here,” he said after a long time. “For we can­not put her to death without evid­ence of her guilt, and if we are ob­stin­ate in wish­ing to give her a hus­band, we do not know how many hus­bands she may des­troy be­fore she is sat­is­fied. She is beau­ti­ful, and will be an or­na­ment in your kah­wah. Indeed I do not know why I sent her away just now, when I came in. Let us call her back, that she may sing to us some of her own songs.”

Ze­howah clapped her hands and Al­masta im­me­di­ately re­turned, for she had in­deed been wait­ing out­side the door, en­deav­our­ing to hear what was said, since she sus­pec­ted that Khaled would speak of her and ask ques­tions. She un­der­stood well enough, and of­ten much bet­ter than she was will­ing to show, though she could as yet speak but few words of the Ar­abic lan­guage.

“Sit at my feet,” said Khaled, “and sing to me the songs of your own people.”

Al­masta took a mu­sical in­stru­ment from the wall and sat down to sing. Her voice, in­deed, was of en­chant­ing sweet­ness, but as for the words of her songs, the seven wise men them­selves could not have un­der­stood a syl­lable of them, see­ing that they were neither Ar­abic nor Per­sian, nor even Greek. Never­the­less, Khaled made a pre­tence of be­ing much pleased, rest­ing his head against the cush­ions and clos­ing his eyes as though the sound soothed him. As for Ze­howah, she watched the wo­man with great curi­os­ity, won­der­ing whether it were pos­sible that a creature so fair as Al­masta could have done the evil deeds of which she was sus­pec­ted, and plan­ning how she might sur­prise her into a con­fes­sion of guilt.

VII

Not many days passed after this, be­fore the wo­men of the harem began to whis­per among them­selves in the pas­sages and outer cham­bers.

“See,” they said, “how our mas­ter fa­vours this for­eign wo­man, who is in all prob­ab­il­ity a devil from the Per­sian moun­tains. Every day he will have her to sing to him, and to bring him drink, and to sit at his feet. And he has given her sev­eral brace­lets of gold and a large ruby. Surely it will be bet­ter for us to flat­ter her and show her rev­er­ence, for if not she will be­fore long give us sticks to eat, and we shall mourn our folly.”

So they began to ex­hibit great re­spect for Al­masta, giv­ing her al­ways the best seat amongst them and set­ting aside for her the best por­tions of the mut­ton, and the whitest of the rice, and the largest of the sweet­meats and the mel­low­est of the old sugar dates, so that Al­masta fared sump­tu­ously. But though she un­der­stood the reason why the wo­men treated her so much more kindly than be­fore, she was care­ful al­ways to ap­pear thank­ful and to speak softly to them, for she feared Ze­howah, to whom they might speak of her, and who was very power­ful with the Sultan. She was in­deed secretly trans­por­ted with joy, for she loved Khaled and she began to think that be­fore long he would marry her. This was her only motive, also, for she was not oth­er­wise am­bi­tious, and though she af­ter­wards did many evil deeds, she did them all out of love for him.

Though Khaled was by no means soft­hearted, he could not but pity her some­times, see­ing how she was de­ceived by his kind­ness, while he was only mak­ing a pre­tence of pre­fer­ring her in or­der to gain Ze­howah’s love. Often he sat long with closed eyes while she sang to him or played softly upon the bar­bat, and he tried to fancy that the voice and the pres­ence were Ze­howah’s. But her strange lan­guage dis­turbed him, for there were sounds in it like the hiss­ing of ser­pents and like chok­ing, which caused him to start sud­denly just when her voice was sweetest. For the Ge­or­gian tongue is bar­bar­ous and not like any hu­man speech un­der the sun, re­sem­bling by turns the in­ar­tic­u­late warb­ling of birds, and the croak­ing of ravens, and the noises made by an angry cat. Never­the­less, Khaled al­ways made a pre­tence of be­ing pleased, though he en­joined upon Al­masta to learn to sing in Ar­abic.

“For Ar­abic,” he said to her, “is the lan­guage of para­dise, and is spoken by all be­ings among the blessed, from Adam, our father, who waits for the re­sur­rec­tion in the first heaven, to the birds that fly among the branches of the tree Sedrat, near the throne of Al­lah, singing per­petu­ally the verses of Al Koran. The black-eyed vir­gins re­served for the faith­ful, also speak only in Ar­abic.”

“Shall I be of the Hur al Oyun of whom you speak?” Al­masta in­quired.

“How is it pos­sible that you should be of the black-eyed ones, when your eyes are blue?” Khaled asked, laugh­ing. “And be­sides, are you not an un­be­liever?”

“I be­lieve what you be­lieve, and am learn­ing your lan­guage. There is no Al­lah be­side Al­lah.”

“And Mo­hammed is Al­lah’s prophet.”

“And Mo­hammed is Al­lah’s prophet,” Al­masta re­peated de­voutly.

“Good. And the six art­icles of be­lief are also ne­ces­sary.”

“Teach me,” said Al­masta, lay­ing the bar­bat upon the car­pet and fold­ing her hands.

“You must be­lieve first in Al­lah, and secondly in all the an­gels. Thirdly you must be­lieve in Al Koran, fourthly in the proph­ets of Al­lah, fifthly in the re­sur­rec­tion of the dead and the last judg­ment, and lastly that your des­tiny is about your neck so that you can­not es­cape it.”

“I be­lieve in everything,” said Al­masta, who un­der­stood noth­ing of these sac­red mat­ters. “Shall I now be one of the Hur al Oyun?”

“But you have blue eyes.”

“When I know that I am dy­ing, I will paint them black,” said Al­masta, laugh­ing sweetly.

“The an­gels Monkar and Nakir will dis­cover your de­cep­tion,” said Khaled. “When you are dead and bur­ied, these two an­gels, who are black, will enter your tomb. They are of ex­tremely ter­rible ap­pear­ance. Then they will make you sit up­right in the grave and will ex­am­ine you first as to your be­lief and then as to your deeds. You will then not be able to tell lies. If you truly be­lieve and have done good, your soul will then be breathed out of your lips and will float in a state of rest over your grave un­til the last judg­ment. But if not, the black an­gels will beat your head with iron maces, and tear your soul from your body with a tor­ment greater than that caused by tear­ing the flesh from the bones.”

“I be­lieve in everything,” Al­masta said again, sup­pos­ing that her as­sent would please him.

“You find it an easy mat­ter to be­lieve what I tell you,” he said, for he could see that she would have re­ceived any other faith as read­ily. “But it is not easy for a wo­man to enter para­dise, and since it is your des­tiny to have blue eyes, they will not be­come black. The Hur al Oyun, how­ever, are not mor­tal wo­men and no mor­tal wo­man can ever be one of them, since they are es­pe­cially pre­pared for the faith­ful. But a man’s wives may enter para­dise with him, in a glor­i­fied beauty which may not be in­ferior to that of the black-eyed ones. If, for in­stance, Ab­dul Kerim had lived and been your hus­band, you might, by faith and good works, have entered heaven with him as one of his wives.”

Al­masta looked long at Khaled, try­ing to see whether he still sus­pec­ted her, and in­deed he found it very hard to do so, for her look was clear and in­no­cent as that of a young dove that is fed by a fa­mil­iar hand.

“I would like to enter para­dise with you,” said Al­masta, with an ap­pear­ance of timid­ity. “Is it not pos­sible?”

“It may be pos­sible. But I doubt it,” Khaled answered, with grav­ity.

In those days, while Khaled thus spent many hours with Al­masta, Ze­howah of­ten re­mained for a long time in an­other part of the harem, either sur­roun­ded by her wo­men, or sit­ting alone upon the bal­cony over the court, ab­sorbed in watch­ing the people who came and went. The slaves were sur­prised to see that Khaled seemed to prefer the so­ci­ety of the Ge­or­gian to that of his wife, but they dared say noth­ing to Ze­howah and con­ten­ted them­selves with watch­ing her face and en­deav­our­ing to find out whether she were dis­pleased at what was hap­pen­ing, or really in­dif­fer­ent as she ap­peared to be.

Al­masta her­self was dis­trust­ful, sup­pos­ing that Khaled and Ze­howah were in league to­gether to en­trap her into a self-ac­cus­a­tion, and though her heart was trans­por­ted with hap­pi­ness while she was with Khaled, yet she did not for­get to be cau­tious whenever any ref­er­ence was made to Ab­dul Kerim’s death. She also took the long needle out of her hair and hid it care­fully in a corner, in a crevice between the pave­ment and the wall, lest it should at any time fall from its place and bring sus­pi­cion upon her.

Khaled watched Ze­howah as nar­rowly as the wo­men did, to see whether any signs of jeal­ousy showed them­selves in her face, and some­times they talked to­gether of Al­masta.

“It is strange,” said Khaled, “that Al­lah, be­ing all power­ful, should have provided mat­ter for dis­sen­sion on Earth by cre­at­ing one wo­man more beau­ti­ful than an­other, the one with blue eyes, the other with black, the one with red hair and the other with hair need­ing henna to brighten it. Are not all wo­men the chil­dren of one mother?”

“And are not all men her sons also?” asked Ze­howah. “It is strange that Al­lah, be­ing all power­ful, should have provided mat­ter for sor­row by cre­at­ing one man with a spirit eas­ily sat­is­fied, and the other with a soul tor­men­ted by dis­con­tent.”

Khaled looked fix­edly at his wife, and bent his brows. But in secret he was glad, for he sup­posed that she was be­gin­ning to be jeal­ous. However, he made a pre­tence of be­ing dis­pleased.

“Is man a rock that he should never change?” he asked. “Or has he but one eye with which to see but one kind of beauty? Have I not two hands, two feet, two ears, two nos­trils and two eyes?”

“That is true,” Ze­howah answered. “But a man has only one heart with which to love, one voice with which to speak kind words, and one mouth with which to kiss the wo­man he has chosen. And if a man had two souls, they would rend him so that he would be mad.”

At this Khaled laughed a little and would gladly have shown Ze­howah that she was right. But he feared to be treated with in­dif­fer­ence, if he yiel­ded to her ar­gu­ment so soon, and he held his peace.

“Never­the­less,” Ze­howah con­tin­ued, after a time, “you are right and so am I. You said, in­deed, not many days ago that your two hands should wither at the wrists if you took an­other wife, yet I ad­vised you to do so; and now it is clear from what you say that you wish to marry Al­masta. I am your hand­maiden. Take her, there­fore, and be con­ten­ted, for she loves you.”

But now Khaled was much dis­turbed as to what he should an­swer, for he had hoped that Ze­howah would break out into jeal­ous an­ger. He could not ac­cept her ad­vice, be­cause of his oath and still more be­cause of his love for her; yet he could not send away Al­masta, since by so do­ing he would be giv­ing over his last hope of ob­tain­ing Ze­howah’s love by rous­ing her jeal­ousy.

“Take her,” Ze­howah re­peated. “The palace is wide and spa­cious. There is room for us both, and for two oth­ers also, if need be, ac­cord­ing to di­vine law. Take her, and let there be con­tent­ment. Have you not said that she is more beau­ti­ful than I?”

“No,” answered Khaled, “I have not said so.”

“You have thought it, which is much the same, for you said that her hair was red but that mine needed henna to brighten it. Marry her there­fore, this very day. Send for the Kadi, and or­der a feast, and let it be done quickly.”

“Is it noth­ing to you, whether I take her or not?” Khaled asked, seek­ing des­per­ately for some­thing to say.

“Is it for me to set my­self up against the holy law? Or did any­one ex­act from you a prom­ise that you would not take an­other wife? And if you rashly prom­ised any­thing of your own free will, the prom­ise is not bind­ing see­ing that there is no au­thor­ity for it in Al Koran, and that no one de­sires you to keep it—neither I, nor Al­masta.”

Ze­howah laughed at her own speech, and Khaled was too much dis­turbed to no­tice that the laugh was rather of scorn than of mirth.

“How shall I take a wo­man who is per­haps a murderess?” he asked. “Shall I take her who was per­haps the cause of your revered father’s death? May Al­lah give him peace! Surely, the very thought is ter­rible to me, and I will not do it.”

“Will you con­vict her without wit­nesses? And where is your wit­ness? Did not the phys­i­cian ex­plain the reason of the death, and did he sus­pect that there was any­thing un­nat­ural about it? But if you still think that she des­troyed my father and Ab­dul Kerim—peace on them both—why do you make her sit all day long at your feet and sing to you in her bar­bar­ous lan­guage, which re­sembles the bark­ing of jack­als? And why do you com­mand her to bring you drink and fan you when it is hot, and you sleep in the af­ter­noon? This shows a for­giv­ing and trust­ful dis­pos­i­tion.”

“This is an un­answer­able ar­gu­ment,” thought Khaled, be­ing very much per­plexed. “Can I an­swer that I do all this in or­der to see whether Ze­howah is jeal­ous? She would cer­tainly laugh to her­self and say in her heart that she has mar­ried a fool.”

So he said noth­ing, but bent his brows again, and en­deav­oured to seem angry. But Ze­howah took no no­tice of his face and con­tin­ued to urge him to marry Al­masta.

“Have you ever seen such a wo­man?” she asked. “Have you ever seen such eyes? Are they not like twin heav­ens of a deep blue, each hav­ing a shin­ing sun in the midst? Is not her hair like sev­enty thou­sand pieces of gold poured out upon the car­pet from a height? Her nose is a straight piece of pure ivory. Her lips are red­der than pomegranates when they are ripe, and her cheeks are as smooth as silk. Moreover she is as white as milk, freshly taken from the camel, whereas my hands are of the col­our of blanket-bread be­fore it is baked.”

“Your hands are much smal­ler than hers,” said Khaled, who could not suf­fer Ze­howah to dis­credit her own beauty.

“I do not know,” she answered, look­ing at her fin­gers. “But they are less white. And Al­masta is far more beau­ti­ful than I. You your­self said so.”

“I never said so,” Khaled replied, more and more per­plexed. “There are two kinds of beauty. That is what I said. Al­lah has willed it. Al­masta is a slave, and her hands are large. It is a pity, for she is like a mare that has many good points, but whose hoofs are over­grown through too much idle­ness in the stable. I say that there are two kinds of beauty. Yours is that of the free wo­man of a pure and beau­ti­ful race; hers is that of the slave ac­ci­dent­ally born beau­ti­ful.”

Ze­howah gathered up her three long black tresses and laid them across her knees as she sat. Then she shook off her golden brace­lets, one after the other, to the num­ber of a score and heaped them upon the hair.

“Which do you like best?” she asked. “The black or the gold? The day or the night? Here you see them to­gether and can judge fairly between them.”

Khaled sought for a crafty an­swer and made a pre­tence of pon­der­ing the mat­ter deeply.

“After the night,” he said at last, “the day is very bright and glor­i­ous. But when we have looked on it long, only the night can bring rest and peace.”

He was pleased with him­self when he had made this an­swer, sup­pos­ing that Ze­howah would find noth­ing to say. But he had only laid a new trap for him­self.

“That is quite true,” she answered, laugh­ing. “That is also the reason why Al­lah made the day and the night to fol­low each other in suc­ces­sion, lest men should grow weary of eternal light or eternal dark­ness. For the same reason also, since you have a wife whose hair is black, I coun­sel you to take a red-haired one. In this way you will ob­tain that vari­ety which the taste of man craves.”

“If I fol­low your ad­vice, you will re­gret it,” said Khaled.

“You think I shall be jeal­ous, but you are mis­taken. I am what I am. Can an­other wo­man make me more or less beau­ti­ful? Moreover, I shall al­ways be first in the palace, though you take three other wives. The oth­ers will rise up when you come in, but I shall re­main sit­ting. I shall al­ways be the first wife.”

“Undoubtedly, that is your right,” Khaled replied. “Do you sup­pose that I wish to put any wo­man in your place?”

Then Ze­howah laughed, and laid her hand upon Khaled’s arm.

“How fool­ish men are!” she ex­claimed. “Do you think you can de­ceive me? Do you ima­gine, be­cause I have answered you and talked with you today, and listened to your ar­gu­ments, that I do not un­der­stand your heart? Oh, Khaled, this is true which you of­ten say of your­self, that your wit is in your arm. If I were a war­rior and stood be­fore you with a sword in my hand, you could ar­gue bet­ter, for you would cut off my head, and the ar­gu­ment would end sud­denly. But Al­lah has not made you subtle, and words in your mouth are of no more avail than a sword would be in mine, for you en­tangle your­self in your own lan­guage, as I should wound my­self if I tried to handle a weapon.”

At this Khaled was much dis­con­cer­ted, and he stroked his beard thought­fully, look­ing away so as not to meet her eyes.

“I do not know what you mean,” he said, at last. “You cer­tainly ima­gine some­thing which has no ex­ist­ence.”

“I ima­gine noth­ing, for I have seen the truth, ever since the first day when you de­sired to be alone with Al­masta. You are only fool­ishly try­ing to make me jeal­ous of her, in or­der that I may love you bet­ter.”

When Khaled saw that she un­der­stood him, he was without any de­fence, for he had built a wall of sand for him­self, like a child play­ing in the desert, which the first breath of wind causes to crumble, and the second blast leaves no trace of it be­hind.

“And am I fool­ish, be­cause I have done this thing?” he cried, not at­tempt­ing to deny the truth. “Am I a fool be­cause I de­sire your love? But it is folly to speak of it, for you will re­proach me and say that I am dis­con­ten­ted, and will of­fer me an­other wo­man for my wife. Go. Leave me alone. If you do not love me, the sight of you is as vin­egar poured into a fresh wound, and as salt rubbed into eyes that are sore with the sand. Go. Why do you stay? Do you not be­lieve me? Do you wish me to kill you that I may have peace from you? It is a pity that you did not marry one of the hun­dred suit­ors who came be­fore me, for you cer­tainly loved one of them, since you can­not love me. You doubt­less loved the In­dian prince. Would you have him back? I can give you his bones, for I slew him with my own hands and bur­ied him in the Red Desert, where his soul is sit­ting upon a heap of sand, wait­ing for the day of re­sur­rec­tion.”

Then Ze­howah was greatly as­ton­ished, for neither she nor any­one else had ever known what had been the end of that suitor, and after wait­ing a long time, his people who had been with him had de­par­ted sor­row­ing to their own coun­try, and she had heard no more of them.

“What is this?” she asked in amazement. “Why did you kill him? And how could you have done this thing un­seen, since he was guarded by many at­tend­ants?”

“I took him out of the palace in the night, when all were asleep, and then I killed him,” said Khaled, and Ze­howah could get no other an­swer, for he would not con­fess that he had been one of the genii, lest she should not be­lieve the truth, or else, be­liev­ing, should be afraid of him in the fu­ture.

“I will give you his bones,” he said, “if you de­sire them, for I know where they are, and you cer­tainly loved him, and are still mourn­ing for him. If he could be alive, I would kill him again.”

“I never loved him,” Ze­howah answered, at last. “How was it pos­sible? But I would per­haps have mar­ried him, hop­ing to con­vert all his people to the true faith.”

“As you have mar­ried me in the hope, or the as­sur­ance, of giv­ing your people a just king.”

“You are angry, Khaled. And, in­deed, I could be angry, too, but with my­self and not with you, as you are with me, though it be for the same reason. For I be­gin to see and un­der­stand why you are dis­con­ten­ted, and in­deed I will do what I can to sat­isfy you.”

“You must love me, as I love you, if you would save me from de­struc­tion,” said Khaled.

Though Ze­howah could not com­pre­hend the mean­ing of the words, she saw by his face that he was ter­ribly moved, and she her­self began to be more sorry for him.

“Indeed, Khaled,” she said, “I will try to love you from this hour. But it is a hard thing, be­cause you can­not ex­plain it, and it is not easy to learn what can­not be ex­plained. Do you think that all wo­men love their hus­bands in this way you mean? Am I un­like all the rest?”

Khaled took her hand and held it, and looked into her eyes.

“Love is the first mys­tery of the world,” he said. “Death is the second. Between the two there is noth­ing but a wear­i­ness darkened with shad­ows and thick with mists. What is gold? A cinder that glows in the dark­ness for a mo­ment and falls away to a cold ash in our hand when we have taken it. But love is a treas­ure which re­mains. What is renown? A cry uttered in the bazaar by men whose minds are sub­ject to change as their bod­ies are to death. But the voice of love is heard in para­dise, singing be­side the foun­tains Tas­nim and Salsahil. What is power? A net with which to draw wealth and fame from the wa­ters of life? To what end? We must die. Or is power a sword to kill our en­emies? If their time is come they will die without the sword. Or is it a stick to purify the hides of fools? The fool will die also, like his mas­ter, and both will be for­got­ten. But they who love shall enter the sev­enth heaven to­gether, ac­cord­ing to the prom­ise of Al­lah. Death is stronger than man or wo­man, but love is stronger than death, and all else is but a vis­ion seen in the desert, hav­ing no real­ity.”

“I will try to un­der­stand it, for I see that you are very un­happy,” said Ze­howah.

She was si­lent after this, for Khaled’s words were earn­est and sank into her soul. Yet the more she tried to ima­gine what the pas­sion in him could be like, the less she was able to un­der­stand it, for some of Khaled’s ac­tions had been fool­ish, but she sup­posed that there must have been some wis­dom in them, hav­ing its found­a­tion in the nature of love.

“What he says is true,” she thought. “I mar­ried him in or­der to give my people a just and brave king, and he is both brave and just. And I am cer­tainly a good wife, for I should be dis­solved in shame if an­other man were to see my face, and moreover I am care­ful of his wants, and I take his ke­fi­yeh from his head with my own hands, and smooth the cush­ions for him and bring him food and drink when he de­sires it. Or have I with­held from him any of the treas­ures of the palace, or stood in the way of his tak­ing an­other wife? Until today, I thought in­deed that this talk of love meant but little, and that he spoke of it be­cause he de­sired an ex­cuse for mar­ry­ing Al­masta who loves him. But when I said at a ven­ture that he wished to make me jeal­ous, he con­fessed the truth. Now all the tales of love told by the old wo­men are of young per­sons who have seen each other from a dis­tance, but are hindered from mar­ry­ing. And we are already mar­ried. Surely, it is very hard to un­der­stand.”

After this Khaled never called Al­masta to sit at his feet and sing to him, as he had done be­fore, and Ze­howah was con­stantly with him in her stead. At first Al­masta sup­posed that Khaled only made a pre­tence of dis­reg­ard­ing her, out of re­spect for his wife, but she soon per­ceived that he was in­dif­fer­ent and no longer no­ticed her. She then grew fierce and jeal­ous, and her voice was not heard singing in the harem; but she went and took her needle again from the crevice in the pave­ment and hid it in her hair, and though Ze­howah of­ten called her, when Khaled was not in the house, she made as though she un­der­stood even less of the Ar­abic lan­guage than be­fore and sat stu­pidly on the car­pet, gaz­ing at her hands. Ze­howah wear­ied of her si­lence, for she un­der­stood the reason of it well enough.

“I am tired of this wo­man,” she said to Khaled. “Do you think I am jeal­ous of her now?”

Khaled smiled a little, but said noth­ing, only shak­ing his head.

“I am tired of her,” Ze­howah re­peated. “She sits be­fore me like a sack of bar­ley in a grain-seller’s shop, neither mov­ing nor speak­ing.”

“She is yours,” Khaled answered. “Send her away. Or we will give her in mar­riage to one of the sheikhs who will take her away to the desert. In this way she will not be able even to visit you ex­cept when her hus­band comes into the city.”

But they de­cided noth­ing at that time. Some days later Khaled was sit­ting alone upon a bal­cony, Ze­howah hav­ing gone to the bath, when Al­masta came sud­denly be­fore him and threw her­self at his feet, beat­ing her fore­head and tear­ing her hair, though not in­deed in a way to in­jure it.

“What have I done?” she cried. “Why is my lord dis­pleased?”

Khaled looked at her in sur­prise, but answered noth­ing at first.

“Why are my lord’s eyes like frozen pools by the Kura, and why is his fore­head like Kas­bek in a mist?”

Khaled laughed a little at her words.

“Kas­bek is far from Riad,” he answered, “and the wa­ters of the Kura do not ir­rig­ate the Red Desert. I am not dis­pleased. On the con­trary, I will give you a hus­band and a suf­fi­cient dowry. Go in peace.”

But Al­masta re­mained where she was, weep­ing and beat­ing her fore­head.

“Let me stay!” she cried. “Let me stay, for I love you. I will eat the dust un­der your feet. Only let me stay.”

“I think not,” Khaled answered. “You weary Ze­howah with your si­lence and your sul­len­ness.”

“Let me stay!” she re­peated, over and over again.

She was not mak­ing any pre­tence of grief, for the tears ran down abund­antly and stained the red leather of Khaled’s shoes. Though he was hard­hearted he was not al­to­gether cruel, for a man who loves one wo­man greatly is some­what softened to­wards all such as do not stand im­me­di­ately in his way.

“It is true,” he thought, “that I have given this wo­man some oc­ca­sion of hope, for I have treated her kindly dur­ing many days, and she has prob­ably sup­posed that I would marry her. For she is less keen-sighted than Ze­howah, and moreover she loves me.”

“Do not drive me out!” cried Al­masta. “For I shall die if I can­not see your face. What have I done?”

“You have in­deed done noth­ing worthy of death, for I can­not prove that you killed Ab­dul Kerim. I will there­fore give you a good hus­band and you shall be happy.”

But Al­masta would not go away, and em­bra­cing his knees she looked up into his face, im­plor­ing him to let her re­main. Khaled could not but see that she was beau­ti­ful, for the mid­day light fell upon her white face and her red lips, and made shad­ows in her hair of the col­our of mel­low dates, and re­flec­tions as bright as gold when the burn­isher is still in the gold­smith’s hand. Though he cared noth­ing for Al­masta and little for her sor­row, his eye was pleased and he smiled.

Then he looked up and saw Ze­howah stand­ing be­fore him, just as she had come from the bath, wrapped in loose gar­ments of silk and gold. He gazed at her at­tent­ively for there was a dis­tant gleam of light in her eyes and her cheeks were warm, though she stood in the shadow, so that he thought she had never been more beau­ti­ful, and he did not care to look at Al­masta’s face again.

“Why is Al­masta lament­ing in this way?” Ze­howah asked.

“She de­sires to stay in the palace,” Khaled answered; “but I have told her that she shall be mar­ried, and yet she wishes to stay.”

“Let her be mar­ried quickly, then. Is she a free wo­man, that she should res­ist, or is she rich that she should re­fuse alms? Let her be mar­ried.”

“There is a cer­tain young man, cousin to Ab­dul Kerim, a Be­douin of pure des­cent. Let him take her, if he will, and let the mar­riage be cel­eb­rated to­mor­row.”

But Al­masta shook her head, and her tears never ceased from flow­ing.

“You will marry him,” said Khaled. “And if any harm comes to him, I will cause you to be put to death be­fore the second call to prayer on the fol­low­ing morn­ing.”

When Al­masta heard this, her tears were sud­denly dried and her lips closed tightly. She rose from the floor and re­tired to a dis­tance within the room.

On that day Khaled sent for the young man of whom he had spoken, whose name was Ab­dul­lah ibn Mo­hammed el Herir, and offered him Al­masta for a wife. And he ac­cep­ted her joy­fully, for he had heard of her won­der­ful beauty, and was moreover much grat­i­fied by be­ing given a wo­man whom the former Sultan would prob­ably have mar­ried if he had lived. Khaled also gave him a grey mare as a wed­ding gift, and a hand­some gar­ment.

The mar­riage was there­fore cel­eb­rated in the cus­tom­ary man­ner, and no harm came to Ab­dul­lah. But as the au­tumn had now set in, he soon af­ter­wards left the city, tak­ing Al­masta with him, to live in tents, after the man­ner of the Be­douins.

VIII

Ab­dul­lah ibn Mo­hammed, though a young man, was now the sheikh of a con­sid­er­able tribe which had fre­quently done good ser­vice to the late Sultan, Ze­howah’s father, and which had also borne a prom­in­ent part in the re­cent war. Ab­dul Kerim, whom Al­masta had murdered, had been the sheikh dur­ing his life­time, and if the claims of birth had been justly con­sidered, his son, though a mere boy, should have suc­ceeded him. But Ab­dul­lah had found it easy to usurp the chief place, and in the coun­cil which was held after Ab­dul Kerim’s death he was chosen by ac­clam­a­tion. It chanced, too, that he was not mar­ried at the time when he took Al­masta, for of two wives the one had died of a fever dur­ing the sum­mer, and he had di­vorced the other on ac­count of her un­bear­able tem­per, hav­ing been de­ceived in re­spect of this by her par­ents, who had as­sured him that she was as gentle as a dove and as sub­missive as a lamb. But she had turned out to be as quar­rel­some as a wasp and as un­man­age­able as an un­trained hawk, so he di­vorced her, and the more read­ily be­cause she was not beau­ti­ful and her dower had been in­sig­ni­fic­ant. Al­masta there­fore found that she was her hus­band’s only wife.

She would cer­tainly have killed him, as she had killed Ab­dul Kerim, and, in­deed, the late Sultan, in the hope of be­ing taken back into the palace, but she was pre­ven­ted by the fear of death, for she had seen that Khaled’s threat was not empty and would be ex­ecuted if harm came to Ab­dul­lah after his mar­riage. She ac­cord­ingly set her­self to please him, and first of all she learned to speak the Ar­abic lan­guage, in or­der that she might sing to him in his own tongue and tell him tales of dis­tant coun­tries, which she had learned in her own home.

Ab­dul­lah passed the months of au­tumn and the early winter in the desert, mov­ing about from place to place, as is the cus­tom of the Be­douins, it be­ing his in­ten­tion to reach a north­erly point of Aj­man in the spring, in or­der to fall upon the Per­sian pil­grims and ex­tort a ransom be­fore they entered the ter­rit­ory of Ne­jed. For it would not be law­ful to at­tack them after that, since there was a treaty with the Emir of Bas­rah, al­low­ing the pil­grims a safe and free pas­sage to­wards Mecca, for which the Emir paid yearly a sum of money to the Sultan of Ne­jed.

But Al­masta knew noth­ing of this, for she was wholly ig­nor­ant of the desert; and moreover Ab­dul­lah was a cau­tious man, who held that what­so­ever is to be kept secret must not be uttered aloud, though there be no one within three days’ jour­ney to hear it.

Ab­dul­lah treated her with great con­sid­er­a­tion, not ob­li­ging her to weary her­self over­much with cook­ing and other work of the tents. For he re­joiced in her beauty and in the sweet­ness of her voice, and his chief de­light was to sit in the door of the tent at night, chew­ing frankin­cense, while Al­masta sat within, close be­hind him, and told him tales of her own coun­try, or of the life in the palace of Riad. The lat­ter in­deed was as strange to him as the former, and much more in­ter­est­ing.

Now one even­ing they were alone to­gether in this man­ner, and it was not yet very cold. But the stars shone brightly as though there would be a frost be­fore morn­ing, and the other tents were all closed and no one was near the coals which re­mained from the fire after bak­ing the blanket-bread. One might hear the chew­ing of the camels in the dark and the tramp­ing of a mare that moved slowly about, her hind feet be­ing chained to­gether.

“Tell me more of the palace at Riad,” said Ab­dul­lah. “For your Kura, and your snow-covered Kas­bek, and your Tiflis with its warm springs and gar­dens, I shall never see. But I have seen the courts of the palace from my youth, and the Sultan’s kah­wah, and the lat­ticed win­dows of the harem, from which you say that you saw me and loved me in the last days of sum­mer.”

Al­masta had said this to please him, though it was not true. For she knew that men eas­ily be­lieve what flat­ters them, as wo­men be­lieve that what they de­sire must come to pass.

“The palace is a won­der­ful palace,” said Al­masta, “and I will tell you of the treas­ures which are in it.”

“That is what I wish to hear,” answered Ab­dul­lah, put­ting a piece of frankin­cense into his mouth and be­gin­ning to chew it. “Tell me of the treas­ures, for it is said that they are great and of ex­traordin­ary value.”

“The value of them can­not be cal­cu­lated, O Ab­dul­lah, for if you had sev­enty thou­sand hands and on each hand sev­enty thou­sand fin­gers you could not count upon your fin­gers in a whole life­time the gold sherifs and se­quins and to­mans which are hid­den away there in bags. Beneath the court of strangers there is a great cham­ber built of stone in which the sacks of gold are kept, and they are piled up to the roof of the vault on all sides and in the middle, leav­ing only nar­row pas­sages between.”

“If it is all gold, what is the use of the pas­sages?” asked Ab­dul­lah.

“I do not know, but they are there, and there is an­other room filled with sil­ver in the same man­ner. There are also secret places un­der­ground in which jew­els are kept in chests, ru­bies and pearls and In­dian dia­monds and em­er­alds, in such quant­it­ies that they would suf­fice to make neck­laces of a thou­sand rows each for each of the moun­tains in my coun­try. And we have many moun­tains, great ones, not such as the little hills you have seen, but sev­eral days’ jour­ney in height. For we say that when the Lord made the Earth it was at first un­steady, and He set our moun­tains upon it, in the middle, to make it firm, and it has never moved since.”

“I do not be­lieve this,” said Ab­dul­lah. “Tell me more about the jew­els in Riad.”

“There is no end of them. They are like the grains of sand in the desert, and no one of them is worth less than a thou­sand gold sherifs. I do not even know the names of the dif­fer­ent kinds, but there are tur­quoises without num­ber, of the Maidan, and all good, so that you may write upon them with a piece of gold as with a pen; and there are red stones as large as a dove’s egg, red and fiery as the wine of Kachetia, and oth­ers, blue as the sky in winter, and yel­low ones, and some with leaves of gold in them, like morsels of treng float­ing in the juice. But be­sides the gold and sil­ver and pre­cious stones there are thou­sands of rich gar­ments which are kept in chests of fra­grant wood, in up­per cham­bers, abas woven of gold and silk and linen, and vests em­broidered with pearls, and shoes of which even the soles ap­pear to be of gold. And there are great pieces of stuff, In­dian silk, and Per­sian vel­vet, and even satin from Stam­boul, woven by un­be­liev­ers with the help of dev­ils. Then too, in the palace of Riad, there are stored great quant­it­ies of pre­cious weapons, most of them made in Syria, with many swords of Shām, which you say are the best, though I do not un­der­stand the mat­ter, each hav­ing an in­scrip­tion in let­ters of gold upon the blade, and the hilt most cun­ningly chis­elled in the same metal, or carved out of ivory.”

“I saw the treas­ure of Haïl when we took it away after the war, and most of it was dis­trib­uted among us, but there was noth­ing like this,” said Ab­dul­lah.

“The treas­ure of Haïl is to the treas­ure of Riad, as a small black fly walk­ing upon the face of the sun,” answered Al­masta. “And yet there was wealth there also, and there was much which you never saw. For that Khaled, who is now Sultan, is crafty and av­ar­i­cious, and he loaded many camels secretly by night, be­ing helped by black slaves, all of whom he slew af­ter­wards with his own hand lest they should tell the tale, and he then called camel-drivers and sent them away with the beasts to Riad. And he said to them: ‘These are cer­tain loads of fine wheat and of mel­low dates, for the Sultan’s table, such as can­not be found in Riad.’ But he sent a let­ter to his father-in-law, who caused all the packs to be taken im­me­di­ately to one of the secret cham­bers, where he and his daugh­ter Ze­howah took out the jew­els and stored them with their own. And as for me, I be­lieve that Khaled made an end of the Sultan him­self by means of poison in Derey­iyah, for he rode away sud­denly after they had met, as though his con­science smote him.”

“What is this evil tale which you are telling me?” cried Ab­dul­lah. “Surely, it is a lie, for Khaled is a brave man who gives every­one his due and de­ceives no one. And he is by no means subtle, for I have heard him in coun­cil, and he gen­er­ally said only, ‘Smite,’ but some­times he said ‘Strike,’ and that was all his elo­quence. But whether he said the one or the other, he was gen­er­ally the first to fol­low his own ad­vice which, in­deed, by the mer­ci­ful dis­pens­a­tion of Al­lah, pro­cured us the vic­tory. But what is this tale which you have in­ven­ted?”

“And who is this Khaled whom you praise?” asked Al­masta. “And how can you know his craft­i­ness as I know it, who have lived in the palace and braided his wife’s hair, and brought him drink when he was thirsty? Is he a man of your tribe whose des­cent you can count upon your fin­gers, from him to his grand­father and to Ish­mael and Abra­ham? Or is he a man of a tribe known to you, and whose gen­er­a­tions you also know? Has any man called him Khaled ibn Mo­hammed, or Khaled ibn Ab­dul­lah? Or has he ever spoken of his father, who is prob­ably now drink­ing boil­ing wa­ter, and the black an­gels are pound­ing his head with iron maces. Yet he says that he came from the desert. Then you, who are of the desert, do not know the desert, for you do not know whence he is. But there are those who do know, and he fears them, lest they should tell the truth and des­troy him.”

“These are idle tales,” said Ab­dul­lah. “Is it prob­able that the Sultan would have be­stowed his daugh­ter and all the treas­ures you have de­scribed upon such a man without hav­ing made in­quir­ies con­cern­ing his fam­ily? And if the Sultan said noth­ing to us about it, and if Khaled holds his peace, they have doubt­less their reas­ons. For it may be that there is a blood feud between the people of Khaled and some great per­son in Riad, so that he would be in danger of his life if he re­vealed his father’s name. Al­lah knows. It is not our busi­ness.”

“O Ab­dul­lah, you are simple, and you be­lieve all things!” cried Al­masta. “But I heard of him in Bas­rah.”

“What did you hear in Bas­rah? And how could you have heard of him there?”

“I was in the Emir’s harem, be­ing kept there to rest from the jour­ney after they had brought me from the north. And there I heard of Khaled, for the wo­men talked of him, hav­ing been told tales about him by a mer­chant who was ad­mit­ted to the palace.”

“Now this is great folly,” answered Ab­dul­lah. “For Khaled came sud­denly to Riad, and was mar­ried im­me­di­ately to Ze­howah, and on the next day he went out with us against Haïl, which we took from the Sham­mar in three weeks’ time from the day of our march­ing. Moreover we found you there in the palace. How then could news of Khaled have reached Bas­rah be­fore you left that place?”

“I had come to Haïl but the day be­fore you at­tacked the city,” said Al­masta. “But did I say that I had heard of him as already mar­ried to Ze­howah?”

For she saw that she had run the risk of be­ing found out in a lie, and she made haste to de­fend her­self.

“What did you hear of him?” asked Ab­dul­lah.

“He was a not­able fel­low and a rob­ber,” answered Al­masta. “For he is a Per­sian, and a Shiyah, who of­fers pray­ers to Ali in secret. But be­cause he had done many out­rageous deeds, a great price was set upon his head through­out Per­sia, so he fled into Ar­a­bia and by his bold­ness and craft he mar­ried Ze­howah. And now he has made a secret cov­en­ant to de­liver over the king­dom of Ne­jed to the Per­sians.”

Then Ab­dul­lah laughed aloud.

“Who shall de­liver over the Be­douin to a white-faced people, who live on boiled chest­nuts and ride astride of a camel? And when a man has got a king­dom, why should he give it up to any­one, ex­cept un­der force?”

“There is a reason for this, too,” Al­masta answered un­abashed. “For the King of the Per­sians, whom they call the Pade­shah, has an only daugh­ter, of great beauty, and Khaled is to re­ceive her in mar­riage as the price of Ne­jed. Then he will by treach­ery des­troy the Pade­shah’s sons and will in­herit Per­sia also, as he has in­her­ited Ne­jed; and after that he will make war upon the Ro­mans in Stam­boul and will be­come the mas­ter of the whole world.”

“This is a strange tale, and seems full of mad­ness,” said Ab­dul­lah. “I do not be­lieve it. Tell me rather a story of your own coun­try, and af­ter­wards we will sleep, for to­mor­row we will leave this place.”

“I will tell you a won­der­ful his­tory, which is quite true,” answered Al­masta. “Take this fresh piece of frankin­cense which I have pre­pared for you, and put it into your mouth, for you will then not in­ter­rupt me with ques­tions while I am speak­ing.”

So Ab­dul­lah took the sa­voury gum and chewed it, and Al­masta told him the tale which here fol­lows.

“There is in the north, bey­ond Per­sia, a great and pros­per­ous king­dom, ly­ing between two seas, and re­sem­bling para­dise for its won­der­ful beauty. All the hills are covered with trees of every de­scrip­tion in which in­nu­mer­able birds make their nests, all of a beau­ti­ful plumage and good for man to eat. And in these forests there are also great herds of an­im­als, whose name I do not know in Ar­abic, hav­ing branch­ing horns and kindred to the little beast which you call the cow of the desert, but far bet­ter to eat and as large as full-grown camels. A man who is hungry need only shoot an ar­row at a ven­ture, for the birds and an­im­als are so nu­mer­ous that he will cer­tainly hit some­thing. This king­dom is watered every­where by rivers and streams abound­ing in fish, all good to eat and eas­ily caught, and all the val­leys are filled with vine­yards of black and white grapes. But the people of this coun­try are chiefly Chris­ti­ans. May Al­lah send them en­light­en­ment! Now the King was an old man, who de­lighted in feast­ing and cared little for the af­fairs of the na­tion, pre­fer­ring a lute to a sword, and a wine-cup to a shield, and the feet of dan­cing girls to the hoofs of war horses. He had no son to go out to war for him, but only one beau­ti­ful daugh­ter.”

“Like the Sultan of our coun­try who died,” said Ab­dul­lah.

“Very much. There were also other points of re­semb­lance. Now there was a cer­tain Tar­tar in the king­dom of Samarkand, called Is­maïl, who was a rob­ber and had des­troyed many cara­vans on the march, and had broken into many houses both in Samarkand and Tashkent, a not­able evil­doer. But hav­ing one day stolen a fleet mare from the Sultan’s stables, the sol­diers pur­sued him, and in or­der to es­cape im­pale­ment he fled. No one could catch him be­cause the mare he had stolen was the fleetest in Great Tar­tary. So he rode west­ward through many coun­tries, and by the shores of the in­land sea, un­til he came to the king­dom which I have de­scribed. There he hid him­self in the forest for some time and way­laid trav­el­lers, mak­ing them tell him all that they knew of the king­dom, and af­ter­wards killing them. But when he had ob­tained all that he wanted, both rich gar­ments and splen­did weapons, and the ne­ces­sary in­form­a­tion, he left the forest and rode into the cap­ital city. Then he went to the King and de­sired of him a private audi­ence, which was gran­ted. He said that he was the son of a power­ful Chris­tian prince, and had been taken cap­tive by the Tar­tars, but had es­caped, and he offered to make all Tar­tary sub­ject to the King, if only he might marry his daugh­ter. And whether by ma­gic, or by elo­quence, he suc­ceeded, for the King was old and feeble­minded. But soon after the wed­ding, he poisoned his father-in-law and be­came king in his place, though there were many in the land who had a bet­ter right, be­ing closely con­nec­ted with the royal blood.”

“This is the story of Khaled,” said Ab­dul­lah. “I know the truth. Why do you weary me, try­ing to de­ceive me, and call­ing him a rob­ber? But it is true that in Ne­jed there are men of good des­cent who have a bet­ter right to sit on the throne.”

“Hear what fol­lowed,” answered Al­masta. “This man Is­maïl af­ter­wards took cap­tive a wo­man of the Tar­tars, who knew who he was, though he sup­posed her ig­nor­ant. And he gave her in mar­riage to the young­est and bravest of his cap­tains, a man to whom Al­lah had vouch­safed the tongue of elo­quence, and the teeth of strength, and the lips of dis­cre­tion to close to­gether and hide both at the proper sea­son. The wo­man told her hus­band who Is­maïl was, and in­struc­ted him con­cern­ing the palace, its pas­sages and secret places, and the treas­ures that were hid­den there. And she told him also that Is­maïl­had made a cov­en­ant with the Sultan of his own coun­try, which would bring de­struc­tion upon the na­tion he now ruled. For she loved her hus­band on ac­count of his youth and beauty, and she had em­braced his faith and was ready to die for him.”

“The hus­band’s name was Ab­dul­lah,” said Ab­dul­lah. “And he also loved his wife, who sur­passed other wo­men in beauty, as a bay mare sur­passes pigs.”

“He af­ter­wards loved her still bet­ter,” answered Al­masta, “for though he was only chief over four hun­dred tents, she gave him a king­dom. Hear what fol­lowed. But I will call him Ab­dul­lah if you please, though his name was Mskhet.”

“Al­lah is mer­ci­ful! There are no such names in Ar­a­bia. This one is like the break­ing of earthen ves­sels upon stones. Call him Ab­dul­lah.”

“Ab­dul­lah there­fore went to the wisest and most dis­creet of his kindred, and spoke to them of the great treas­ures which were hid­den in the palace, and he poin­ted out to their ob­scured sight that all this wealth had been got by them and their fath­ers in war, and had been taken in tithes from the people, and was now in the pos­ses­sion of Is­maïl. And they talked among them­selves and saw that this was in­deed true. And at an­other time, he told them that Is­maïl was not really of their re­li­gion, but a hy­po­crite. And again a third time he told them the whole truth, so that their hearts burned when they knew that their King was but a rob­ber who had been con­demned to death. Though they were dis­creet men, the story was in some way told abroad among the sol­diers, doubt­less by the in­ter­ven­tion of an­gels, so that all the people knew it, and were angry against Is­maïl and ready to break out against him so soon as a man could be found to lead them.”

“But,” said Ab­dul­lah, “this Is­maïl doubt­less had a strong guard of sol­diers about him, and had given gifts to his cap­tains, and shown hon­our to them, so that they were at­tached to him.”

“Undoubtedly,” replied Al­masta, “and but for his wife, Ab­dul­lah could not have suc­ceeded. She ad­vised him to go to his dis­creet kindred and friends and say to them, ‘See, if you will af­ter­wards sup­port me, I will go alone into the palace and will get the bet­ter of this Is­maïl, when he is asleep, and I will so do that the sol­diers shall not op­pose me. And af­ter­wards, you will all enter to­gether and the treas­ure shall be di­vided. But we will throw some of it to the people, lest they be dis­ap­poin­ted.’ And so he did. For his wife knew the secret en­trances to the palace and took him in with her by night, dis­guised as a wo­man. And they went to­gether si­lently into the harem, and slew Is­maïl and bound his wife, and took the keys of the treas­ure cham­bers from un­der the pil­low. After this they took from the gold as many bags as there were sol­diers, and waked each man, giv­ing him a sack of sherifs, and bid­ding him take as much more as he could find, for the King was dead. Then Ab­dul­lah’s friends were ad­mit­ted and they di­vided the treas­ure, and went abroad be­fore it was day, call­ing upon the people that Is­maïl was dead and that a man of their own na­tion was King in his place, and scat­ter­ing hand­fuls of gold into every house as they passed. And, be­hold, be­fore the second call to prayer, Ab­dul­lah was King, and all the people came and did homage to him. And Ab­dul­lah him­self was as­ton­ished when he saw how easy it had been, and loved his wife even bet­ter than be­fore.”

So Al­masta fin­ished her tale and there was si­lence for a time, while Ab­dul­lah sat still and gazed at the closed tents in the star­light, and listened to the dis­tant chew­ing of the camels.

“Give me some wa­ter,” he said at last. “I am very thirsty.”

She brought him drink from the skin, and soon af­ter­wards he lay down to rest. But they said noth­ing more to each other that night of the story which Al­masta had told.

On the fol­low­ing day they jour­neyed fully el­even hours, to a place where there was much wa­ter, and in the even­ing, when the camels were chew­ing, and all the Be­douins had eaten and were rest­ing in their tents, Ab­dul­lah sat again in his ac­cus­tomed place.

“Al­masta, light of my dark­ness,” he said, “I would gladly hear again some­thing of the tale you told me last night, for I have not re­membered it well, be­ing over­burdened with the cares of my people and the dir­ec­tion of the march. Surely you said that when the wo­man and her hus­band had killed Is­maïl they took the keys of the treas­ure cham­bers from un­der his pil­low. Is it not so?”

“They did so, Ab­dul­lah,”

“And they im­me­di­ately went and took the gold and gave it to the guards? But I have for­got­ten, for it is a mat­ter of little im­port­ance, be­ing but a tale.”

“That is what they did,” answered Al­masta.

“But surely this is a fable. How could the wo­man know the way to the treas­ure cham­bers and find it in the dark? For you said also that these secret places were un­der­ground and there­fore a great way from the harem.”

“I did not say that, Ab­dul­lah, for the secret places un­der­ground are those in Riad, which I de­scribed to you be­fore I began the other story.”

“This may be true, for I am very for­get­ful. But I daresay that the treas­ures in the city you de­scribed were also hid­den in sim­ilar places.”

“Since you speak of this, I re­mem­ber that it was so. The glor­i­ous light of your in­tel­li­gence pen­et­rates the dark­ness of my memory and makes it clear. The places were ex­actly sim­ilar.”

“How then could the wo­man, who only knew the harem, find her way in the dark, and lead her hus­band, to a part of the palace which she had never vis­ited? This is a hard thing.”

“It was not hard for her. She had seen Is­maïl open with his key a door in his sleep­ing cham­ber, and he had gone in and after some time had re­turned bear­ing sacks of gold pieces. Was this a hard thing? Or does a wise man make two doors to his treas­ure-house, the one for him­self and the other for thieves? The one lead­ing to his own cham­ber, for his own use, and the other open­ing upon the high­way for the con­veni­ence of rob­bers? It is pos­sible, but I think not. Is­maïl had but one door. He was not an Egyp­tian jack­ass.”

“This is reas­on­able,” said Ab­dul­lah. “And I am now sat­is­fied. But my ima­gin­a­tion was not at rest, for the story is a good one and de­serves to be well told.”

After this Ab­dul­lah wandered for a long time with the Be­douins who ac­com­pan­ied him, of­ten chan­ging his dir­ec­tion, so that they wondered whither he was lead­ing them, and began to ques­tion him. But he answered that he had heard secretly of a great spoil to be taken, and that they should all have a share of it, and whenever they came upon Arabs of an­other tribe Ab­dul­lah in­vited the sheikh and the most not­able men to his tent and en­ter­tained them sump­tu­ously with camel’s meat, af­ter­wards talk­ing long with them in private. Be­fore many weeks had passed, the skil­ful men of the tribe, who knew the signs, were aware that many other Be­douins were trav­el­ling in the same dir­ec­tion as them­selves, though they could not be seen.

But neither Ab­dul­lah’s men, nor Al­masta her­self, could know that in three months the sheikhs of all the tribes from Hasa to Harb, and from Aj­man to El Kora, had heard that Khaled the Sultan was a Per­sian rob­ber, and a Shiyah at heart, ven­er­at­ing Ali and ex­ec­rat­ing the true Sonna, a man who in all prob­ab­il­ity drank wine in secret, and who was cer­tainly plot­ting to de­liver up all Ne­jed to the power of the Ajjem. Some of them be­lieved the tale read­ily enough, for all had asked whence Khaled was and none had got an an­swer. Could a man be of the desert, they asked, and yet not be known by name in any of the tribes, nor his father be­fore him? Surely, there was a secret, they said, and he who will not tell the name of his father has a reason for chan­ging his own. And as for his be­ing brave and hav­ing fought well in the war with the Sham­mar, how could a man have been a rob­ber if he were not brave, and why should he not fight man­fully, since he had everything to gain and noth­ing to lose? As for the spoils, too, he had made a pre­tence of di­vid­ing them justly, but it was now well known that he had laden camels by stealth at Haïl and had sent them secretly to Riad, slaughter­ing with his own hand all those who had helped him.

Little by little, too, the story came to Riad and was told in a low voice by mer­chants in the bazaar, and re­peated by their wives among their ac­quaint­ance, and by the slaves in the mar­ket and among the beg­gars who begged by the doors of the great mosque but were fed daily from the palace. And though many per­sons of the bet­ter sort thought that the story might be true, and wagged their heads when Khaled’s name was spoken, yet the beg­gars with one ac­cord de­clared that it was a lie. For Khaled was gen­er­ous in alms­giv­ing, and they said, “If Khaled is over­thrown and an­other Sultan set up in his place, how do we know whether there will be boiled camel’s meat from time to time as well as blanket-bread and a small meas­ure of bar­ley meal? And will the next Sultan scat­ter gold in the streets as Khaled did on the first day when he rode to the mosque? Truly these chat­ter­ers of Be­douins talk much of the treas­ure in the palace which will be di­vided, but they who talk most of gold, are they who most de­sire it, and we shall get none. There­fore we say it is a lie, and Khaled is a true man, and a Sonna like ourselves, not a swiller of wine nor a de­vourer of pigs. Al­lah show him mercy now and at the day of re­sur­rec­tion! The cock-spar­row is plum­ing his breast while the hunter is pulling the string of the snare.”

Thus the beg­gars talked among them­selves all day, reas­on­ing after the man­ner of their kind. But they suffered other people to talk as they pleased, for one who de­sires alms must not ex­hibit a con­tra­dict­ory dis­pos­i­tion, lest the rich man be of­fen­ded and eat the melon to­gether with the melon peels, and ex­claim that the dirt-scraper has be­come a preacher. For the rich man’s an­ger is at the edge of his nos­trils and al­ways ready.

As the winter passed away and the spring began, the tribes of the desert drew nearer and nearer to the city, as is their wont at that sea­son. For many of the sheikhs had houses in the city, in which they spent the hot months of the year, while their people were en­camped in the low hill coun­try not far off, where the heat is less fierce than in the plains and the deserts. And now also the sea­son of the Haj was ap­proach­ing, for Ra­madhan was not far off, and the beg­gars con­greg­ated at the gates wait­ing for the first pil­grims, and ex­pect­ing plen­ti­ful alms, which in due time they re­ceived, for in that year Ab­dul­lah did not mo­lest the Per­sian pil­grim­age, his mind be­ing oc­cu­pied with other mat­ters.

IX

The story which was thus re­peated from mouth to mouth in Riad reached the palace at the last, and the guards told it to each other as they sat to­gether un­der the shadow of the great wall, the cooks re­lated it among them­selves in the kit­chen, and the black slaves gos­siped about it in the corners of the court­yard, and the wo­men slaves stood and listened while they talked and car­ried the tale into the harem. But the people of the palace were more slow to be­lieve than the people of the city, for they shared in a meas­ure in Khaled’s right of pos­ses­sion, and de­sired no change of mas­ter, so that for a long time neither Ze­howah nor Khaled heard any­thing of what was com­monly re­por­ted. Yet at last the old wo­man who had been Ze­howah’s nurse told her the sub­stance of the story, with many prot­est­a­tions of un­be­lief, and of an­ger against those who had in­ven­ted the lie.

“It is right that my lady and mis­tress should know these things,” she said, “and when our lord the Sultan has been in­formed of them, he will doubt­less cause his sol­diers to go forth with sticks and purify the hides of the chief evil-speak­ers in the bazaar. There is one es­pe­cially, a mer­chant whose shop is op­pos­ite the door of the little mosque, who is con­tinu­ally bold in false­hood, be­ing the same who sold me this gar­ment for linen; but it af­ter­wards turned out to be cot­ton and the gold threads are brass and have turned black. I pray Al­lah to be just as well as mer­ci­ful.”

At first Ze­howah laughed, but soon af­ter­wards her face be­came grave, and she bent her brows, for though the story was but a lie she saw how eas­ily it would find cre­dence. She there­fore sent the old wo­man away with a gift and she her­self went to Khaled, and sat down be­side him and took his hand.

“You have secret en­emies,” she said, “who are plot­ting against your life, and who have already be­gun to at­tack you by filling the air of the city with false­hoods which fly from house to house like flies in sum­mer en­ter­ing at the win­dow and go­ing out by the door. You must sift this mat­ter, for it is worthy of at­ten­tion.”

“And what are these lies of which you speak?”

“It is said openly in the city that you are a Shiyah and a Per­sian, hav­ing been a rob­ber be­fore you came here, and that you are plot­ting to de­liver over Ne­jed to the Per­sians. Look to this, Khaled, for they say that you are no Be­douin since no one knows your des­cent nor the name of your father.”

“Do you be­lieve this of me, Ze­howah?” Khaled asked.

“Do I be­lieve that the sun is black and the night as white as the sun? But it is true that I do not know your father’s name.”

Then Khaled was troubled, for he saw that it would be a hard mat­ter to ex­plain, and that without ex­plan­a­tion his safety might be en­dangered. Ze­howah sat still be­side him, hold­ing his hand and look­ing into his face, as though ex­pect­ing an an­swer.

“Have I done wisely in telling you?” she asked at last. “You are troubled. I should have said noth­ing.”

“You have done wisely,” he answered. “For I will go and speak to them, and if they be­lieve me, the mat­ter is fin­ished, but if not I have lost noth­ing.”

“It will be well to give the chief men presents, and to dis­trib­ute some­thing among the people, for gifts are great per­suaders of un­be­lief.”

“Shall I give them presents be­cause they have be­lieved evil of me?” asked Khaled, laugh­ing. “Rather would I give you the treas­ures of the whole Earth be­cause you have not be­lieved it.”

“If I had the wealth of the whole world I would give it to them rather than that they should hurt a hair of your head,” Ze­howah answered.

“Am I more dear to you than so much gold, Ze­howah?”

“What is gold that it should be weighed in the bal­ance with the life of a man? You are dearer to me than gold.”

“Is this love, Ze­howah?” Khaled asked, in a low voice.

“I do not know whether it be love or not.”

“The wing of night is lif­ted for a mo­ment, and the false dawn is seen, and af­ter­wards it is night again. But the true dawn will come by and by, when night folds her wings be­fore the day.”

“You speak in a riddle, Khaled.”

“It is no mat­ter. I will neither make a speech to the people, nor give them gifts. What is it to me? Let them chat­ter from the first call to prayer un­til the lights are put out in the even­ing. My fate is about my neck, and I can­not change it, any more than I can make you love me. Al­lah is great. I will wait and see what hap­pens.”

“Everything is un­doubtedly in Al­lah’s hand,” said Ze­howah. “But if a man, hav­ing meat set be­fore him, will not raise his right hand to thrust it into the dish, he will die of hun­ger.”

“And do you think that Al­lah does not know be­fore whether the man will stretch out his hand or not?”

“Undoubtedly Al­lah knows. And he also knows that if you will not sift this mat­ter and stop the mouths of the li­ars, I will, though I am but a wo­man, for oth­er­wise we may both per­ish.”

“If they des­troy me, yet they can­not take the king­dom from you, nor hurt you,” said Khaled. “How then are you in danger? If I am slain you will then choose a hus­band, whose father’s name is known to them. They will be sat­is­fied and you will be no worse off than be­fore and pos­sibly bet­ter. This is truth. I will there­fore wait for the end.”

“Who has put these words into your mouth, Khaled? For the thought is not in your heart. Moreover, if the tribes should rise up and over­throw you, they would not spare me, for I would fight against them with my hands and they would kill me.”

“Why should you fight for me, since you do not love me? But this is folly. No one ever heard of a wo­man tak­ing arms and fight­ing.”

“I have heard of such deeds. And if I had not heard of them, oth­ers should through me, for I would be the first to do them.”

“I think that so long as Khaled lives, Ze­howah need not bear arms,” said Khaled. “I will there­fore go and call the chief men to­gether and speak to them.”

And so he did. When the prin­cipal of­ficers who had re­mained in the city dur­ing the winter sea­son were as­sembled in the kah­wah, and had hung up their swords on the pegs and par­taken of a re­fresh­ment, Khaled sent the slaves away, and spoke in a few words as was his man­ner.

“Men of Riad, Aared and all Ne­jed,” he said, “I re­gret that more of you are not present here, but a great num­ber of sheikhs are still in the desert, and it can­not be helped. I de­sire to tell you that I have heard of a tale con­cern­ing me which is cir­cu­lated from mouth to ear through­out Riad and the whole king­dom. This tale is un­true, a lie such as no hon­est man re­peats even to his own wife at home in the harem. For it is said that I am not called Khaled, but per­haps Ali Has­san, or per­haps Ali Hus­sein, that I am a Shiyah, a wine-bib­ber and an id­ol­at­rous one who prays for the in­ter­ces­sion of Ali, be­sides be­ing a Per­sian and a rob­ber. It is also said that I plot to de­liver over the king­dom of Ne­jed to the Per­sians, though how this could be done I do not know, see­ing that the Per­sians are a meal-faced people of white jack­als who do not know how to ride a camel. These are all lies. I swear by Al­lah.”

When the men heard these words, they looked stealth­ily one at an­other, to see who would an­swer Khaled, for they had all heard the story and most of them were in­clined to be­lieve it. Peace is the mother of evil-speak­ing, as garbage breeds flies in a corner, which af­ter­wards fly into clean houses and men ask whence they come. But none of the chief men found any­thing to say at first, so that Khaled sat in si­lence a long time, wait­ing for someone to speak. He there­fore turned to the one nearest to him, and ad­dressed him.

“Have you heard this tale?” he in­quired. “And if you have heard it do you be­lieve it?”

“I think, in­deed, that I have heard some­thing of the kind,” answered the man. “But it was as the chat­ter­ing of an un­cer­tain vis­ion in a dream, which rings in the ears for a mo­ment while it is yet dark in the morn­ing, but is for­got­ten when the sun rises. By the in­stru­ment­al­ity of a just mind Al­lah caused that which entered at one ear to run out from the other as the rins­ing of a wa­ter-skin.”

“Good,” answered Khaled. “Yet it is not well to rinse the brains with false­hoods. And you?” he in­quired, turn­ing to the next. “Have you heard it also?”

“Just lord, I have heard,” replied this one. “But if I have be­lieved, may my head be shaved with a red-hot razor hav­ing a jagged edge.”

“This is well,” Khaled said, and he ques­tioned a third.

“O Khaled!” cried the man. “Is the milk sour, be­cause the slave has ima­gined a lie say­ing, ‘I will say it is bad and then it will be given to me to drink’? Or is honey bit­ter be­cause the cook has put salt in the sweet­meats? Or is it night be­cause the wo­man has shut the door and the win­dow, to keep out the sun?”

The next also found an an­swer, hav­ing col­lec­ted his thoughts while the oth­ers were speak­ing.

“A cer­tain man,” said he, “kept sheep in Tabal Sham­mar, and the dog was with the sheep in the fold. Then two foxes came to the fold in the even­ing and one of them said to the man: ‘All dogs are wolves, for we have seen their like in the moun­tains, and your dog is also a wolf and will eat up your sheep. Make haste to kill him there­fore and cast out his car­case.’ And to the sheep the other fox said: ‘How many sheep hang by the heels at the butcher’s! And how many dogs live in sheep­folds! This is an evil world for in­no­cent people.’ And the sheep were at first per­suaded, but presently the dog ran out and caught one of the foxes and broke his neck, and the man threw a stone at the other and hit him, so that he also died. Then the sheep said one to an­other: ‘The foxes have suffered justly, for they were li­ars and rob­bers and the dog and our mas­ter have pro­tec­ted us against them, which they would not have done had they de­sired our de­struc­tion.’ And so are the people, O Khaled. For if you let the li­ars go un­hurt the people will be­lieve them, but if you des­troy them the faith of the mul­ti­tude will be turned again to you.”

“This is a fable,” said Khaled, “and it is not without truth. I am the sheep­dog and the people are the sheep. But in the name of Al­lah, which are the foxes?”

Then he turned to an­other, an old man who was the Kadi, cel­eb­rated for his wis­dom and for his re­li­gious teach­ing in the chief mosque.

“I ask you last of all,” said Khaled, “be­cause you are the wisest, and when the wisest words are heard last they are most eas­ily re­membered. For we first put wa­ter into the lamp, and then oil to float upon the sur­face, and next the wick, and last of all we take a torch and light the lamp and the dark­ness dis­ap­pears. Light our lamp, there­fore, O Kadi, and let us see clearly.”

“O Khaled,” replied the Kadi, “I am old and have seen the world. You can­not des­troy the tree by cut­ting off one or two of its branches. It is ne­ces­sary to strike at the root. Now the root of this tree of lies which has grown up is this. Neither we nor the people know whence you are, nor what was your father’s name, and though I for my part do not im­pi­ously ask whence Al­lah takes the good gifts which he gives to men, there are many who are not sat­is­fied, and who will go about in jeal­ousy to make trouble un­til their ques­tion­ing is answered. If you ask coun­sel of me, I say, tell us here present of what tribe you are, for we be­lieve you a pure Be­douin like the best of us, and tell us your father’s name, and peace be upon him. We are men in au­thor­ity and will speak to the people, and I will ad­dress them from the pul­pit of the great mosque, and they will be­lieve us. Then all will be ended, and the lies will be ex­tin­guished as the coals of an even­ing fire go out when the night frost des­cends upon the camp in winter. But if you will not tell us, yet I, for one, do not be­lieve ill of you; and moreover you are lord, and we are vas­sals, so long as you are King and hold good and evil in your hand.”

“So long as I am King,” Khaled re­peated. “And you think that if I do not tell my father’s name, I shall not be where I am for a long time.”

“Al­lah is wise, and knows,” answered the Kadi, but he would say noth­ing more.

“This is plain speak­ing,” said Khaled, “such as I like. But I might plainly take ad­vant­age of it. You de­sire to know my father’s name and whence I come. Then is it not easy for me to say that I come from a dis­tant part of the Great Dahna? Is there a man in Ne­jed who has crossed the Red Desert? And if I say that my father was Mo­hammed ibn Abd el Hamid ibn Abd el Latif, and so on to our father Is­maïl, upon whom be peace, shall any­one deny that I speak truth? This is a very easy mat­ter.”

“So much the more will it be easy for us to sat­isfy the people,” answered the Kadi.

“No doubt. I will think of what you have said. And now, I pray you, par­take of an­other re­fresh­ment and go in peace.”

At this all the chief men looked one at the other again, for they saw that Khaled would not tell them what they wished to know. And those of them who had doubted the story be­fore now began to be­lieve it. But they held their peace, and presently made their sa­luta­tion and took their swords from the wall and de­par­ted.

Khaled then left the kah­wah and re­turned to Ze­howah in the harem.

“I have told them that these tales are lies,” he said, “but they do not be­lieve me.”

He re­peated to Ze­howah all that had been said, and she listened at­tent­ively, for she began to un­der­stand that there was danger not far off.

“And I told them,” he said at last, “that it would be as easy for me to in­vent names, as for them to hear them. Then they looked side­ways each at the other and kept si­lent.”

“This is a fool­ish thing which you have done,” answered Ze­howah. “They will now all be­lieve that your father was an evil­doer and that you your­self are no bet­ter. Other­wise, they will say, why should he wish to con­ceal any­thing? You should have told them the truth, whatever it is.”

“You also wish to know it, I see,” said Khaled, look­ing at Ze­howah curi­ously. “But if I were to tell you, you would not be­lieve me, I think, any more than they would.”

Then Ze­howah looked at him in her turn, but he could not un­der­stand the lan­guage of her eyes.

“What is this secret of yours?” she asked. “I would in­deed like to hear it, and if you swear to me that it is true, by Al­lah, I will be­lieve you. For you are a very truth­ful man, and not subtle.”

But Khaled was troubled at this. For he knew that she would find it hard to be­lieve; and that if she did be­lieve it, she would be ter­ri­fied to think that she had mar­ried one of the genii, and if not, she would sus­pect him of a hid­den pur­pose in telling her an empty fable, and he would then be fur­ther from her love than be­fore. He held his peace, there­fore, for some time, while she watched him, play­ing with her beads. In real­ity she was very curi­ous to know the truth, though she had al­ways been un­will­ing to ask it of him, see­ing that she had mar­ried him as a stranger, of her own will and choice, without in­quiry.

“Is it just,” she asked at last, “that the people should ac­cuse you of evil deeds and fill the air of the city with false­hoods con­cern­ing you, so that the very slaves hear the guards re­peat­ing the lies to each other in the court­yard, and that I, who am your wife, should not know the truth? What have I done that you should not trust me? Or what have I said that you should re­gard me no more than a slave who sprinkles the floor and makes the fire, and while she is present in the room you hold your peace lest she should know your thoughts and be­tray them? Am I not your wife, and faith­ful? Have I not given you a king­dom and treas­ure bey­ond count­ing? Surely there were times when you talked more freely with that bar­bar­ian slave-wo­man, whose hair was red, than you ever talk with me.”

“This is not true,” said Khaled. “And if I talked fa­mil­iarly with Al­masta, you know the reason, for you your­self found it out, and called me simple for try­ing to de­ceive you. And now she is gone to the desert with her hus­band and there is no more ques­tion of her, or her red hair. But all the rest is true, and you have in­deed given me a king­dom, which I am likely to lose and wealth which I do not de­sire, though you have not given me that which I covet more than gold or king­doms, for I de­sire it in­deed, and that is your love. Moreover if you have given me the rest, I have done some­thing in re­turn, for I have fought for your people, and shed my blood freely, and given you a na­tion cap­tive, be­sides lov­ing you and re­fus­ing to take an­other wife into my house. And this last is a mat­ter of which some wo­men would think more highly than you.”

But Ze­howah’s curi­os­ity was burn­ing within her like a thirst, for al­though she had at first cared little to know of Khaled’s former life, she was as­ton­ished at his per­sist­ency in keep­ing the secret now, see­ing that the whole coun­try was full of false ru­mours about him.

“How can a man ex­pect that a wo­man should love him, if he will not put his trust in her?” she asked.

Then Khaled did not hes­it­ate any longer, for he was never slow to do any­thing by which there seemed to be any hope of gain­ing her love. He there­fore took her hand in his, and it trembled a little so that he was pleased, though in­deed the un­stead­i­ness came more from her anxi­ety to know the story he was about to tell, than from any love she felt at that mo­ment.

“You have sworn that you will be­lieve me, Ze­howah,” he said. “But I fore­warn you that there are hard things to un­der­stand. For the reason why I will not tell my father’s name, nor the name of my tribe is a plain one, see­ing that I was not born like other men, and have no father at all, and my brethren are not men but genii of the air, cre­ated from the be­gin­ning and destined to die at the second blast of the trum­pet be­fore the re­sur­rec­tion of the dead.”

At this Ze­howah star­ted sud­denly in fright and looked into his face, ex­pect­ing to see that he had coals of fire for eyes and an ap­palling coun­ten­ance. But when she saw that he was not changed and had the face of a man and the eyes of a man, she laughed.

“What is this idle tale of Afrits?” she ex­claimed. “Frighten chil­dren with it.”

“This is what I foresaw in you,” said Khaled. “You can­not be­lieve me. Of what use is it then to tell you my story?”

Ze­howah answered noth­ing, for she was angry, sup­pos­ing that Khaled was at­tempt­ing to put her off with a fool­ish tale. She had heard, in­deed, of Genii and Afrits and she was sure that they had ex­ist­ence, since they were ex­pressly men­tioned in the Koran, but she had never heard that any of them had taken the shape and man­ner of a man. She re­membered also how Khaled had al­ways fought with his hands in war, like other men and been wounded, and she was sure that if his story were true he would have summoned whole le­gions of his fel­lows through the air to des­troy the en­emy.

“You do not be­lieve me,” he re­peated some­what bit­terly. “And if you do not be­lieve me, how shall oth­ers do so?”

“You ask me to be­lieve too much. If you ask for my faith, you must of­fer me truths and not fables. It is true that I am curi­ous, which is fool­ish and wo­manly. But if you do not wish to tell me your secret, I can­not force you to do so, nor have I any right to ex­pect con­fid­ence. Let us there­fore talk of other things, or else not talk at all, for though you will not sat­isfy me you can­not de­ceive me in this way.”

“So you also be­lieve that I am a Per­sian and a rob­ber,” said Khaled. “Is it not so?”

“How can I tell what you are, if you will not tell me? Is your name writ­ten in your face that I may know it is in­deed Khaled and not Ali Has­san as the people say? Or is the re­cord of your deeds in­scribed upon your fore­head for me to read? You may be a Per­sian. I can­not tell.”

Then Khaled bent his brows and turned his eyes away from her, for he was angry and dis­ap­poin­ted, though in­deed she knew in her heart that he was no Per­sian. But she let him sup­pose that she thought so, hop­ing per­haps to goad him into sat­is­fy­ing her curi­os­ity.

If Khaled had been a man like other men, as Ze­howah sup­posed him to be, he would doubt­less have in­ven­ted a well-framed his­tory such as she would have be­lieved, at least for the present. But to him such a false­hood ap­peared use­less, for he had seen the world dur­ing many ages and had ob­served that a lie is never really suc­cess­ful ex­cept by chance, see­ing that no in­tel­li­gence is pro­found enough to fore­see the man­ner in which it will be some day ex­amined, whereas the truth, be­ing al­ways co­in­cid­ent with the real­ity, can never be wholly re­futed.

Khaled there­fore hes­it­ated as to whether he should tell his story from the be­gin­ning, or hold his peace; but in the end he de­cided to speak, be­cause it was in­tol­er­able to him to be thought an evil­doer by her.

“You make haste to dis­be­lieve, be­fore you have heard all,” he said at last. “Hear me to the end. I have told you that I slew the In­dian prince. That was be­fore I be­came a man. You your­self could not un­der­stand how I was able to enter the palace and carry him away without be­ing ob­served. But as I was at that time able to fly and to make both my­self and him in­vis­ible, this need not sur­prise you. If you do not be­lieve that I did it, let us or­der a lit­ter to be brought for you, and I will take my mare and a suf­fi­cient num­ber of at­tend­ants, and let us ride south­wards into the Red Desert. There I will show you the man’s bones. You will prob­ably re­cog­nise them by the gold chain which he wore about his neck and by his ring. After that, when I had bur­ied him, the mes­sen­ger of Al­lah came to me, and be­cause the man was an un­be­liever, and had in­ten­ded to em­brace the faith out­wardly, hav­ing evil in his heart, Al­lah did not des­troy me im­me­di­ately, but com­manded that the an­gel As­rael should write my name in the book of life, that I might be­come a man. But Al­lah gave me no soul, prom­ising only that if I could win your love, whose suitor I had killed, I should re­ceive an im­mor­tal spirit, which should then be judged ac­cord­ing to my deeds. This is truth. I swear it in the name of Al­lah, the mer­ci­ful, the com­pas­sion­ate. Then an an­gel gave me gar­ments such as men wear, and a sword, and a good mare, and I trav­elled hither to Riad, eat­ing lo­custs for food. And though no man knew me, you mar­ried me at once, for it was the will of Al­lah, whose will shall also be done to the end. The rest you know. If, there­fore, you will love me be­fore I die, I shall re­ceive a soul and it may be that I shall in­herit para­dise, for I am a true be­liever and have shed blood for the faith. But if you do not love me, when I die I shall per­ish as the flame of a lamp that is blown out at dawn. This is the truth.”

He ceased from speak­ing and looked again at Ze­howah. At first he sup­posed from her face that she be­lieved him, and his heart was com­for­ted, but presently she smiled, and he un­der­stood that she was not con­vinced. For the story had in­ter­ested her greatly and she had al­most for­got­ten not to be­lieve it, but when she no longer heard his voice, it seemed too hard for her.

“This is a strange tale,” she said, “and it will prob­ably not sat­isfy the people.”

“I do not care whether they are sat­is­fied or not,” Khaled answered. “All I de­sire is to be be­lieved by you, for I can­not bear that you should think me what I am not.”

“What can I do? I can­not say to my in­tel­li­gence, take this and re­ject that, any more than I can say to my heart, love or love not. It would in­deed have been easier if you had said, ‘I am a cer­tain Per­sian, a fu­git­ive, pro­tect me, for my en­emies are upon me.’ I could per­haps give you pro­tec­tion if you re­quire it, as you may. But you come to me with a mon­strous tale, and you ask me to love, not a man, but a Jinn or an Afrit, or whatever it pleases you to call your­self. As­suredly this is too hard for me.”

And again Ze­howah smiled scorn­fully, for she was really be­gin­ning to think that he might be a Per­sian dis­guised as the people said.

“I need no pro­tec­tion from man or wo­man,” said Khaled, “for I fear neither the one nor the other. For I am strong, and if I am able to give out of char­ity I am also able to take by force. My fate is ever with me. I can­not es­cape it. But neither can oth­ers es­cape theirs. I will fight alone if need be, for if you will not love me I care little how I may end. Moreover, in battle, it is not good to stand in the way of a man who seeks death.”

But Ze­howah thought this might be the speech of a des­per­ate man such as Ali Has­san, the rob­ber, as well as of Khaled, the Jinn, and she was not con­vinced, though she no longer smiled. For she knew little of su­per­nat­ural be­ings, and a devil might eas­ily call him­self a good spirit, so that she was con­vinced that she was mar­ried either to a de­mon or to a dan­ger­ous rob­ber, and she could not even de­cide which of the two she would have pre­ferred, for either was bad enough, and as for love there could no longer be any ques­tion of that.

Khaled un­der­stood well enough and rose from his seat and went away, de­sir­ing to be alone. He knew that he was now sur­roun­ded by danger on every side and that he could not even look to his wife for com­fort, since she also be­lieved him to be an im­postor.

“Truly,” he said to him­self, “this is a task bey­ond ac­com­plish­ment, which Al­lah has laid upon me. It is harder to get a wo­man’s love than to win king­doms, and it is easier to des­troy a whole army with one stroke of a sword than to make a wo­man be­lieve that which she does not de­sire. And now the end is at hand. For she will never love me and I shall cer­tainly per­ish in this fight, be­ing alone against so many. Al­lah as­suredly did not in­tend me to run away, and moreover there is no reason left for re­main­ing alive.”

On that day Khaled again called the chief men to­gether in his kah­wah, and ad­dressed them briefly.

“Men of Riad,” he said, “I am aware that there is a con­spir­acy to over­throw and des­troy me, and I daresay that you yourselves are among the plot­ters. I will not tell you who I am, but I swear by Al­lah that I am neither a Per­sian nor a rob­ber, nor yet a Shiyah. You will doubt­less at­tack me un­awares, but you will not find me sleep­ing. I will kill as many of you as I can, and af­ter­wards I also shall un­doubtedly be killed, for I am alone and you have many thou­sands on your side. Min Al­lah—it is in Al­lah’s hands. Go in peace.”

So they de­par­ted, shak­ing their heads, but say­ing noth­ing.