The Witch of Prague & Khaled: A Tale of Arabia. Francis Marion Crawford

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ 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 summer-time 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 Shainmar 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 market-place. 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 СКАЧАТЬ