Khaled, A Tale of Arabia Part 23

Now indeed the quarrel which had been begun by the blow struck in the dark spread suddenly to great dimensions, for the words spoken were caught up as grains of sand by the wind and blown into all men's ears.

Many were ready enough to believe that Abdullah cared only for enriching himself and his tribe, and many more who had been persuaded to the enterprise by the hope of gain turned again to their faith in Khaled as the dream of gold disappeared from their eyes. Yet Abdullah's tribe was numerous, and it was easy to see that if the dissension grew into a strife of arms the fight would be long and fierce on both sides.

Then certain of those who were against Abdullah raised the cry that he had slain Khaled and escaped with the treasure by a secret pa.s.sage leading under the walls of the city, which pa.s.sage was spoken of in old tales, though no one knew where to find it. But the mult.i.tude believed and pressed forward in a strong body and began to beat against the iron-bound gate of the palace with great stones and pieces of wood.

Abdullah's men came on fiercely to prevent them, but were opposed by many, and as the wing of night was lifted and the dawn drank the stars, the wide square was filled with the clas.h.i.+ng of arms and the noise of a terrible tumult.

CHAPTER XII

At the time when the beggars were carrying away Abdullah and his wife, Khaled was sitting in his accustomed place, silent and heavy at heart, and Zehowah played softly to him upon a barbat and sang a sad song in a low voice. For she saw that gloominess had overcome him and she feared to disturb his mood, though she would gladly have made him smile if she had been able.

A black slave of Khaled's whom he had treated with great kindness had secretly told him that there was a plan to enter the palace with evil during that night, for the fellow had spied upon those who knew and had overheard what he now told his master. He had also asked whether he should not warn the guards of the palace, in order that a strict watch should be kept, but Khaled had bidden him be silent.

'Either the guards are conspiring with the rest,' said Khaled, 'and will be the first to attack me, or they are ignorant of the plan; and if so how can they withstand so great a mult.i.tude? I will abide by my own fate, and no man shall lose his life for my sake unless he desires to do so.'

But he privately put on a coat of mail under his aba, and when he sat down in the harem to await the end he would not let Zehowah take his sword, but laid it upon his feet and sat upright against the wall, looking towards the door.

'Since I have no soul,' he said to himself, 'this is probably the end of all things. But there is no reason why I should not kill as many of these murderers as possible.'

He was gloomy and desponding, however, since he saw that his hour was at hand, and that Zehowah was no nearer to loving him than before. He watched her fingers as she played upon the instrument, and he listened to the soft notes of her voice.

'It is a strange thing,' he thought, 'and I believe that she is not able to love, any more than my sword upon my feet, which is good and true and beautiful, and ever ready to my hand, but is itself cold, having no feeling in it.'

Still Zehowah sang and Khaled heard her song, listening watchfully for a man's tread upon the threshold and looking to see a man's face and the light of steel in the shadow beyond the lamps.

'The night is long,' he said at last, aloud.

'It is not yet midnight,' Zehowah answered. 'But you are tired. Will you not go to rest?'

'I shall rest to-morrow,' said Khaled. 'To-night I will sit here and look at you, if you will sing to me.'

Zehowah gazed into his eyes, wondering a little at his exceeding sadness. Then she bowed her head and struck the strings of the instrument to a new measure more melancholy than the last, and sang an old song of many verses, with a weeping refrain.

'Are you also heavy at heart to-night?' Khaled asked, when he had listened to the end.

'It is not easy to kindle a lamp when the rain is falling heavily,'

Zehowah said. 'Your sadness has taken hold of me, like the chill of a fever. I cannot laugh to-night.'

'And yet you have a good cause, for they say that to-night the earth is to be delivered of a great malefactor, a certain Persian, whose name is perhaps Ha.s.san, a notorious robber.'

Khaled turned away his head, smiling bitterly, for he desired not to see the satisfaction which would come into her face.

'This is a poor jest,' she answered in a low voice, and the barbat rolled from her knees to the carpet beside her.

'I mean no jesting, for I do not desire to disappoint you, since you will naturally be glad to be freed from me. But I am glad if you are willing to sing to me, for this night is very long.'

'Do you think that I believe this of you?' asked Zehowah, after some time.

'You believed it yesterday, you believe it to-day, and you will believe it to-morrow when you are free to make choice of some other man--whom you will doubtless love.'

'Yet I know that it is not true,' she said suddenly.

'It is too late,' Khaled answered. 'The more I love you, the more I see how little faith you have in me--and the less faith can I put in you.

Will you sing to me again?'

'This is very cruel and bitter.' Zehowah sighed and looked at him.

'Will you sing to me again, Zehowah?' he repeated. 'I like your sad music.'

Then she took up the barbat from the carpet, but though she struck a chord she could not go on and her hand lay idle upon the strings, and her voice was still.

'You are perhaps tired,' said Khaled after some time. 'Then lay aside the instrument and sleep.' He composed himself in his seat, his sword being ready and his eyes towards the door.

But Zehowah shook her head as though awaking from a dream, her fingers ran swiftly over the strings and gentle tones came from her lips. Khaled listened thoughtfully to the song and the words soothed him, but before she had reached the end, she stopped suddenly.

'Why do you not finish it?' he asked.

'If you have told me truth,' she answered, 'this is no time for singing and music. But if not, why should I labour to amuse you, as though I were a slave? I will call one of the women who has a sweet voice and a good memory. She will sing you a kasid which will last till morning.'

'You are wrong,' said Khaled. 'There is no reason in what you say.'

But he reflected upon her nature, while he spoke.

'Surely,' he thought, 'there is nothing in the world so contradictory as a woman. I ask of her a song and she is silent. I bid her rest, supposing her to be weary, and she sings to me. If I tell her that I hate her she will perhaps answer that she loves me. Min Allah! Let us see.'

'You inspire hatred in me,' he said aloud, after a few moments.

At this Zehowah was very much astonished, and she again let the barbat fall from her knees.

'You wished me to believe that you loved me, and this not long since,'

she answered.

'It may be so. I did not know you then.'

He looked towards the door as though he would say nothing further.

Zehowah sighed, not understanding him yet being wounded in that sensitive tissue of the heart which divides the outer desert of pride from the inner garden of love, belonging to neither but separating the two as a veil. And when there is a rent in that veil, pride looks on love and scoffs bitterly, and love looks on pride and weeps tears of fire.

'I am sorry that you hate me,' she said, but the words were bitter in her mouth as a draught from a spring into which the enemy have cast wormwood, that none may drink of it.

'Allah is great!' thought Khaled. 'This is already an advantage.'

Then Zehowah took up the barbat and began to sing a careless song not like any which Khaled had ever heard. This is the song--

'The fisherman of Oman tied the halter under his arms, The sky was as blue as the sea in winter.

The fisherman dived into the deep waters As a ray of light shoots through a sapphire of price.

The sea was as blue as the sky, for it was winter.

Among the rocks below the water it was dark and cold Though the sky above was as blue as a fine sapphire.