The Thief of Bagdad. Achmed Abdullah

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СКАЧАТЬ shall do neither!” laughed the Thief of Bagdad. “It is airy up here and pleasant and most exclusive! Here I am, and here I shall remain!”

      But he did not.

      For at last the Hindu lost his patience. He made another magic pass, whispered another secret word, and the rope gave, bent, flicked from side to side, shot down to the ground, and sent Ahmed sprawling. Almost immediately he was up again, his agile fingers clutching at the rope. But the Hindu’s hand was as quick as Ahmed’s, and so they stood there, tugging at the rope, with the crowd looking on and laughing, when suddenly from the distance, where a Mosque peaked its minaret of rosy stone overlaid half way up with a faience tiling of dusky, peacock-green sheen, a muezzin’s voice drifted out, chanting the call to mid-day prayer, stilling the tumult:

      “Es salat wah es-salaam aleyk, yah auwel khulk Illah wah khatimat russul Illah—peace be with Thee and the glory, O first-born of the creatures of God, and seal of the apostles of God! Hie ye to devotion! Hie ye to salvation! Prayer is better than sleep! Prayer is better than food! Bless ye God and the Prophet! Come, all ye faithful!”

      “Wah khatimat russul Illah——” mumbled the crowd, turning in the direction of Mecca.

      They prostrated themselves, touching the ground with palms and foreheads. The Hindu joined them, chanting fervently. So did Ahmed, though not so fervently. Indeed while, mechanically, automatically, he bowed toward the East and while his lips formed the words of the prayer, his roaming, lawless eyes noticed the magic rope, between him and the Hindu. The latter, occupied with his devotions, was paying no attention to it. A moment later, watching his chance, Ahmed had picked it up and was away, fleet-footedly, across the bent backs of the worshipers. He ran at a good clip through the wilderness of little Arab houses. He increased his speed when, not long afterwards, he heard in the distance the view-halloo of the man-chase as the Hindu, rising from his devotions, noticed that his precious rope had been stolen.

      “Thief! Thief! Catch thief!” the shout rose, bloated, stabbed, spread.

      He ran as fast as he could. But his pursuers gained on him steadily, and he felt afraid. Only the day before he had watched a thief being beaten in public with cruel rhinoceros-hide whips that had torn the man’s back to crimson shreds. He shuddered at the recollection. He ran till his lungs were at the bursting point, his knees ready to give way under him.

      He had turned the corner of the Street of the Mutton-Butchers when his pursuers came in sight. They saw him.

      “Thief! Thief!” the shouts echoed and reverberated, sharp, grim, ominous, freezing the marrow in his bones.

      Where could he turn? Where hide himself? And then he saw, directly in front of him, an immense building; saw above him, thirty feet up, the invitation of an open window. How reach it? Hopeless! But, the next moment, he remembered his magic rope. He spoke the secret word. And the rope uncoiled, whizzed, stood straight like a lance at rest, and up he went hand over hand.

      He reached the window, climbed in, drew the rope after him.

      The house was deserted. He sped through empty rooms and corridors; came out on the roof and crossed it; leaped to a second roof and crossed that; a third; a fourth; until at last, slipping through a trap door, he found himself—for the first time in his unhallowed existence—in a Mosque of Allah, up on the ceiling rafters.

      Inside, below him, a tall, gentle-eyed, green-turbaned Moslem priest was addressing a small gathering of devotees.

      “There is prayer to Allah in everything,” he said, “in the buzzing of the insects, the scent of flowers, the lowing of cattle, the sighing of the breeze. But there is no prayer to be compared to the prayer of a man’s honest, plucky work. Such prayer means happiness. Honest, courageous, fearless work means the greatest happiness on earth!”

      A sentiment the opposite of Ahmed’s philosophy of life.

      “You lie, O priest!” he shouted from the rafters; and he slid down and faced the Holy Man with impudent eyes and arrogant gestures.

      There was an angry growling, as of wild animals, among the devotees. Fists were raised to smash that blasphemous mouth. But the priest raised calm hands. He smiled upon Ahmed as he might upon a babbling child.

      “You are—ah—quite sure, my friend?” he asked with gentle irony. “You know, belike, a better prayer, a greater happiness than honest, courageous work?”

      “I do!” replied Ahmed. For a fleeting moment he felt embarrassed beneath the other’s steady gaze. The shadow of an uneasy premonition crept over his soul. Something akin to awe, to fear, touched his spine with clay-cold hands, and he was ashamed of this feeling of fear; spoke the more arrogantly and loudly to hide this fear from himself: “I have a different creed! What I want, I take! My reward is here, on earth! Paradise is a fool’s dream, and Allah is nothing but a myth!”

      Again the angry worshippers surged toward him. Again the Holy Man held them back with a gesture of his lean hands. He called after Ahmed, who was about to leave the Mosque.

      “I shall be here, little brother,” he said, “and waiting for you—in case you need my help—the help of my faith in God and the Prophet!”

      “I—need you?” mocked Ahmed. “Never, priest! Hayah! Can a frog catch cold?”

      And, with a ringing laugh, he was out of the Mosque.

      Ten minutes later, he reached the dwelling place which he shared with Hassan el-Toork, nicknamed Bird-of-Evil, his pal and partner. A snug, cosy, secret little dwelling it was, in the bottom of an abandoned well, and there he spread his loot before the other’s delighted eyes.

      “I love you, my little butter-ball, my little sprig of sweet-scented sassafras!” mumbled Bird-of-Evil, caressing Ahmed’s cheek with his clawlike old hands. “Never was there as clever a thief as you! You could steal food from between my lips, and my belly would be none the wiser! Gold—Jewels—purses …” he toyed with the loot—“and this magic rope! Why, in the future there will be no wall too high for us, no roof too steep, and …” he slurred, interrupted himself as—for the abandoned well was only a stone’s throw from Bagdad’s outer gate—a loud voice called to the warden to open it:

      “Open wide the gates of Bagdad! We are porters bringing precious things for the adornment of the Palace! For tomorrow suitors come to woo our royal Princess!”

      The Caliph in those days was Shirzad Kemal-ud-Dowlah, twelfth and greatest of the glorious Ghaznavide dynasty. Lord he was from Bagdad to Stambul, and from Mecca to Jerusalem. His pride was immense, and, beside his Arabic title of Caliph, he gloried in such splendid Turkish titles as: Imam-ul-Muslemin—Pontiff of all Moslems; Alem Penah—Refuge of the World; Hunkiar—Man-Slayer; Ali-Osman Padishahi—King of the Descendants of Osman; Shahin Shahi Alem—King of the Sovereigns of the Universe; Hudavendighar—Attached to God; Shahin Shahi Movazem ve-Hillulah—High King of Kings and shadow of God upon Earth.

      Zobeid was his daughter, his only child, and heir to his great kingdom.

      As to Zobeid’s beauty and charm and surpassing witchery, there have come down to us, through the grey, swinging centuries, a baker’s dozen of reports. To believe them all one would have to conclude that, compared to her, Helen of Troy for the sake of whose face a thousand ships were launched, was only an ugly duckling. We choose therefore, with full deliberation, the simplest and least florid of these contemporary accounts, as contained in the letter of a certain Abu’l Hamed СКАЧАТЬ