Khaled, A Tale of Arabia Part 26

And the sword they all knew in battle, began to make a storm of lightning about his head in the morning sun.

Then the strong man who had wrestled and thrown the other before dawn, stood out alone and spoke in a loud voice.

'We will have no Sultan but Khaled!' he cried. 'Give us Abdullah that we may make trappings for our camels from his skin.'

Then Khaled sheathed his sword and came forward from under the gate, and Zehowah stood veiled beside him.

'Where is this Abdullah?' he asked. 'Find him if you can, for I would like to speak with him.'

Then there was silence for a s.p.a.ce. But by this time Abdullah's men had fled, for they had already been forced back in the crowding, and so soon as they saw Khaled standing unhurt under the palace gate, they turned quickly and ran for their lives to escape from the city, seeing that all was lost.

'Where is Abdullah?' Khaled asked again.

And a voice from afar off answered, as though heralding the coming of a great personage.

'Behold Abdullah, the Sultan of Nejed!' it cried.

Then the mult.i.tude turned angrily, grasping swords and spears and breathing curses. But the murmur broke suddenly into a shout of laughter louder even than the cry for Khaled had been. For a great procession had entered the square and the people made way for it as it advanced towards the palace.

First came a score of lepers, singing in hideous voices and dancing in the early sun, filthy and loathsome to behold. And then came all manner of cripples, laughing and chattering, with coloured rags fastened to their staves, an army of distorted apes.

Then, walking alone and feeling his way with his staff came the Sheikh of the beggars. And in one hand he held the end of a halter, which was fastened about Abdullah's head and neck and between his teeth, so that he could not cry out. And the blind man chanted a kasid which he had composed in the night in honour of Abdullah ibn Mohammed el Herir, the victorious Sultan of Nejed.

'Upon whom may Allah send much boiling water,' sang the Sheikh of the beggars after each stave.

And Abdullah, his head and face shaven as bald as an ostrich's egg, was bent by the weight he carried, for upon his shoulders rode the cripple whom they called the a.s.s of Egypt, clapping the wooden shoes he used on his hands, like cymbals to accompany the song of the blind man. And last of all came a veiled woman, walking sadly, for she could not escape, being surrounded and driven on by many scores of beggars, all dancing and shouting and crying out mock praises of the Sultan Abdullah and his wife.

But as the procession moved on the laughter increased a hundredfold, until all men's eyes were blind with mirth, and their b.r.e.a.s.t.s were bursting and aching with so much merriment.

At last the Sheikh of the beggars stood before Khaled holding the halter. And here he made a deep obeisance, pulling the halter so that Abdullah nearly fell to the ground.

'In the name of the beggars,' he said, 'I present to your high majesty the Sultan of Nejed, Abdullah ibn Mohammed, and his chief minister the a.s.s of Egypt, and moreover the sultan's wife. May it please your high majesty to reward the beggars with a few small coins and a little barley, for having brought his high majesty, the new sultan, safely to the gate of the palace and to the steps of the throne.'

Thereupon all the beggars, the lepers, the cripples, the blind men and those of weak understanding fell down together at Khaled's feet.

This is the story of Khaled the believing genius, which he caused to be written down in letters of gold by the most accomplished scribe in Nejed, that all men might remember it. But of what afterwards occurred there is nothing told in the scribe's ma.n.u.script. It is recounted, however, in the commentaries of one Abd ul Latif that Khaled did not cause Abdullah to be beheaded, nor in any way hurt, save that he was driven out of the city with his wife, where certain Bedouins affirmed that he lived for many years with her in great dest.i.tution. But it is well known that after this Zehowah bore Khaled many strong sons, whose children and children's children reigned gloriously for many generations in Nejed. And Khaled and Zehowah died full of years on the same day, and lie buried together in a garden without the Hasa gate, and the pilgrims from Ajman and the east visit their tombs even to the present time.